Binding Strength and Hydrogen Bond Numbers between COVID-19 RBD and HVR of Antibody

The global battle against the COVID-19 pandemic relies strongly on the human defense of antibody, which is assumed to bind the antigen’s receptor binding domain (RBD) with its hypervariable region (HVR). Due to the similarity to other viruses such as SARS, however, our understanding of the antibody-virus interaction has been largely limited to the genomic sequencing, which poses serious challenges to containment and rapid serum testing. Based on the physical/chemical nature of the interaction, infrared spectroscopy was employed to reveal the binding disparity, the real cause of the antibody-virus specificity at the molecular level, which is inconceivable to be investigated otherwise. Temperature dependence was discovered in the absorption value from the 1550 cm−1 absorption band, attributed to the hydrogen bonds by carboxyl/amino groups, binding the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and closely resembled SARS-CoV-2 or SARS-CoV-1 antibodies. The infrared absorption intensity, associated with the number of hydrogen bonds, was found to increase sharply between 27 °C and 31 °C, with the relative absorbance matching the hydrogen bonding numbers of the two antibody types (19 vs. 12) at 37 °C. Meanwhile, the ratio of bonds at 27 °C, calculated by thermodynamic exponentials, produces at least 5% inaccuracy. Beyond genomic sequencing, the temperature dependence, as well as the bond number match at 37 °C between relative absorbance and the hydrogen bonding numbers of the two antibody types, is not only of clinical significance in particular but also as a sample for the physical/chemical understanding of vaccine–antibody interactions in general.

Leveraging Social Media as a Thermometer to Gauge Patient and Caregiver Concerns: COVID-19 and Prostate Cancer.

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically impacted society and health care on a global scale. To capture the lived experience of patients with prostate cancer and family members/caregivers during the COVID-19 pandemic, we performed a mixed-methods study of posts to two online networks. We compared all 6187 posts to the Inspire Us TOO Prostate Cancer online support and discussion community from December 2019 to April 2020, to 6926 posts from the same interval in 2019, applying a linguistic ethnography method. A similar analysis was performed using data from the Reddit discussion website (246 posts from 2019 and 260 posts from 2020). Manual qualitative analysis was performed for all 207 posts that mentioned COVID, COVID-19, or coronavirus. The computational linguistic ethnography analysis revealed a more collective tone in 2020, with increased concern about death. Our qualitative analysis showed that patients with prostate cancer and caregivers have concern about a variety of COVID-19-related impacts on care, including delays in testing and treatment. There was also substantial concern about the impact of having cancer on COVID-19 risk and access to COVID-19 care. Misinformation was present in 7% of COVID-19-related posts. In conclusion, online networks provide a useful source of real-world data from patients and their families, and analysis of these data highlighted a substantial impact of COVID-19 on prostate cancer care. PATIENT SUMMARY: We performed a study of online posts by patients with prostate cancer and their families on their perspectives about COVID-19. Concerns about the impact of COVID-19 included worry about delays in testing and treatment. Our research also revealed misinformation in COVID-19-related posts.

Multi-Omics Resolves a Sharp Disease-State Shift between Mild and Moderate COVID-19.

We present an integrated analysis of the clinical measurements, immune cells, and plasma multi-omics of 139 COVID-19 patients representing all levels of disease severity, from serial blood draws collected during the first week of infection following diagnosis. We identify a major shift between mild and moderate disease, at which point elevated inflammatory signaling is accompanied by the loss of specific classes of metabolites and metabolic processes. Within this stressed plasma environment at moderate disease, multiple unusual immune cell phenotypes emerge and amplify with increasing disease severity. We condensed over 120,000 immune features into a single axis to capture how different immune cell classes coordinate in response to SARS-CoV-2. This immune-response axis independently aligns with the major plasma composition changes, with clinical metrics of blood clotting, and with the sharp transition between mild and moderate disease. This study suggests that moderate disease may provide the most effective setting for therapeutic intervention.