ABSTRACT
Pulmonary fibrosis (PF) is a chronic lung disease characterised by alveolar inflammatory injury, alveolar septal thickening, and eventually fibrosis. Patients with severe Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) may have left a certain degree of pulmonary fibrosis. PF is commonly caused by oxidative imbalance and inflammatory damage. S-allylmercapto-N-acetylcysteine (ASSNAC) exhibits anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory effects in other diseases. However, the pharmacodynamics of ASSNAC remain unclear for PF. This investigation aimed to evaluate the efficacy and mechanism of ASSNAC against PF. The PF model was established by TGF-ß1 stimulating HFL-1 cells in vitro. ASSNAC exhibited the potential to inhibit fibroblast transformation into myofibroblasts. Also, in the PF mice model with bleomycin (BLM), the sodium salt of ASSNAC (ASSNAC-Na) inhalation was treated. ASSNAC remarkably improved mice's lung tissue structure and collagen deposition. The important indicator proteins of PF, collagen â , collagen â ¢, and α-SMA significantly decreased in the ASSNAC treated groups. Besides, ASSNAC attenuated oxidative stress by reversing glutathione (GSH), superoxide dismutase (SOD) levels and interfering with Nrf2/NOX4 signaling pathways. ASSNAC showed an anti-inflammatory effect by reducing the number of inflammatory cells and inflammatory cytokines, such as TNF-α and IL-6, and blocking the NF-κB signaling pathway. ASSNAC inhibited fibroblast differentiation by blocking the TGF-ß1/Smad2/3 signaling pathway. This study implicates that ASSNAC alleviates pulmonary fibrosis through fighting against oxidative stress, reducing inflammation and inhibiting fibroblast differentiation.
ABSTRACT
As an important carrier of public emotion expression, public opinion spreads on a large scale with the continuous upgrading of social networks, and effectively controlling the spreading process of public opinion is an essential topic of contemporary social research. In view of the competition between positive and negative information in the process of public opinion dissemination, this paper introduces the theory of emotional infection and proposes a network public opinion communication model based on emotional contagion, considering the reinforcement effect of different individual mentalities and the influence of government intervention. Based on the data from the COVID-19 epidemic situation, MATLAB simulation technology is used to verify the validity of the model, and the effect of strengthening the validity and government intervention on public opinion control is discussed. According to the experiment, three conclusions have been come up with. First, a positive reinforcement effect can enhance the ignorant participants' ability to maintain the same emotion as the infected information. When positive information repeatedly stimulates the ignorant, it will positively strengthen the ability of people with a positive mentality to maintain positive emotions, which is significantly beneficial to public opinion control. Its essence is to increase the effect of positive information's belief factor on the dynamic infection rate. When negative information repeatedly stimulates an ignorant person, it will positively strengthen the ability of the person with a negative attitude to maintain negative emotion, which is not conducive to public opinion control. Second, a negative reinforcement effect will strengthen the ignorant ability to change the same emotion as the infected information. When negative information repeatedly stimulates the ignorant, the negative reinforcement effect will strengthen the positive people's ability to change negative information into positive emotion, which is significantly beneficial to public opinion control. Its essence is to increase the effect of suspicion factor on the dynamic immunization rate. It will strengthen the positive mentality and negative mentality into the path of immunization, which is beneficial to epidemic control. When positive information repeatedly stimulates the ignorant, it will negatively strengthen the ability of the negative mentality to change the positive information into negative emotions, which is not beneficial to the control of public opinion. It will be harmful to strengthen the path of positive and negative mentality into immunization, which is beneficial to epidemic control. Third, the earlier the government intervenes in public opinion, the better it will be. The essence of intervention is to decrease the dynamic incitement rate. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Discrete Dynamics in Nature & Society is the property of Hindawi Limited and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND Use of renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system inhibitors in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients lacks evidence and is still controversial. This study was designed to investigate effects of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) or angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) on clinical outcomes of COVID-19 patients and to assess the safety of ACEIs/ARBs medication. MATERIAL AND METHODS COVID-19 patients with hypertension from 2 hospitals in Wuhan, China, from 17 Feb to 18 Mar 2020 were retrospectively screened and grouped according to in-hospital medication. We performed 1: 1 propensity score matching (PSM) analysis to adjust for confounding factors. RESULTS We included 210 patients and allocated them to ACEIs/ARBs (n=81; 46.91% males) or non-ACEIs/ARBs (n=129; 48.06% males) groups. The median age was 68 [interquartile range (IQR) 61.5-76] and 66 (IQR 59-72.5) years, respectively. General comparison showed mortality in the ACEIs/ARBs group was higher (8.64% vs. 3.88%) but the difference was not significant (P=0.148). ACEIs/ARBs was associated with significantly more cases 7-categorical ordinal scale >2 at discharge, more cases requiring Intensive Care Unit (ICU) stay, and increased values and ratio of days that blood pressure (BP) was above normal range (P<0.05). PSM analysis showed no significant difference in mortality, cumulative survival rate, or other clinical outcomes such as length of in-hospital/ICU stay, BP fluctuations, or ratio of adverse events between groups after adjustment for confounding parameters on admission. CONCLUSIONS We found no association between ACEIs/ARBs and clinical outcomes or adverse events, thus indicating no evidence for discontinuing use of ACEIs/ARBs in the COVID-19 pandemic.