Nervous system manifestations related to COVID-19 and their possible mechanisms.

In December 2019, the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) due to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection broke. With the gradual deepening understanding of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, researchers and clinicians noticed that this disease is closely related to the nervous system and has complex effects on the central nervous system (CNS) and peripheral nervous system (PNS). In this review, we summarize the effects and mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 on the nervous system, including the pathways of invasion, direct and indirect effects, and associated neuropsychiatric diseases, to deepen our knowledge and understanding of the relationship between COVID-19 and the nervous system.

Reprogrammed tracrRNAs enable repurposing of RNAs as crRNAs and sequence-specific RNA biosensors.

In type II CRISPR systems, the guide RNA (gRNA) comprises a CRISPR RNA (crRNA) and a hybridized trans-acting CRISPR RNA (tracrRNA), both being essential in guided DNA targeting functions. Although tracrRNAs are diverse in sequence and structure across type II CRISPR systems, the programmability of crRNA-tracrRNA hybridization for Cas9 is not fully understood. Here, we reveal the programmability of crRNA-tracrRNA hybridization for Streptococcus pyogenes Cas9, and in doing so, redefine the capabilities of Cas9 proteins and the sources of crRNAs, providing new biosensing applications for type II CRISPR systems. By reprogramming the crRNA-tracrRNA hybridized sequence, we show that engineered crRNA-tracrRNA interactions can not only enable the design of orthogonal cellular computing devices but also facilitate the hijacking of endogenous small RNAs/mRNAs as crRNAs. We subsequently describe how these re-engineered gRNA pairings can be implemented as RNA sensors, capable of monitoring the transcriptional activity of various environment-responsive genomic genes, or detecting SARS-CoV-2 RNA in vitro, as an Atypical gRNA-activated Transcription Halting Alarm (AGATHA) biosensor.

COVID-19 and healthcare system in China: challenges and progression for a sustainable future.

With the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, healthcare systems across the world have been pushed to the brink. The approach of traditional healthcare systems to disaster preparedness and prevention has demonstrated intrinsic problems, such as failure to detect early the spread of the virus, public hospitals being overwhelmed, a dire shortage of personal protective equipment, and exhaustion of healthcare workers. Consequently, this situation resulted in manpower and resource costs, leading to the widespread and exponential rise of infected cases at the early stage of the epidemic. To limit the spread of infection, the Chinese government adopted innovative, specialized, and advanced systems, including empowered Fangcang and Internet hospitals, as well as high technologies such as 5G, big data analysis, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. The efficient use of these new forces helped China win its fight against the virus. As the rampant spread of the virus continues outside China, these new forces need to be integrated into the global healthcare system to combat the disease. Global healthcare system integrated with new forces is essential not only for COVID-19 but also for unknown infections in the future.

Psychological status of parents of hospitalized children during the COVID-19 epidemic in China.

A series of unexplained pneumonia appeared in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, which is highly contagious. The virus is prone to nervous and anxious psychological reactions. In the objective environment of complex and densely populated hospitals, it is a high-risk area for virus-transmitted infections and children generally have lower immunity who are more likely to develop infections. The results showed that the mental health problems of parents of hospitalized children during the epidemic were more serious, and the anxiety and depression were more obvious.