IFN-α armed gE elicits superior immunogenicity compared to unmodified antigens and flagellin armed gE in mice.

Herpes zoster (HZ) induces significant pain and discomfort, which can seriously affect the quality of life of patients. At present, there is no specific treatment for HZ, and the mosteffective HZ control is vaccination. The main obstacle to developing an effective HZ vaccine is poorly induced cellular immune response. In this study, the IFN-α-gE-Fc fusion protein induced higher levels of humoral and cellular immunity compared to the unengineered gE antigen and higher levels of cellular immunity compared to the flagellin-gE-Fc fusion protein in a murine model. Compared with the marketed recombinant herpes zoster vaccine (Shingrix), IFN-α-gE-Fc can replace current used MPL adjuvant. At the same time, the immunogenicity of the IFN-α-gE-Fc + AQ was not weaker than that of the marketed recombinant zoster vaccine. The novel fusion protein provides a candidate entity for the development of a safe and effective novel HZ vaccine.

Preparation of iminodiacetic acid functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes and its application as sorbent for separation and preconcentration of heavy metal ions.

In this paper, a novel material was prepared with functionalizing multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) using iminodiacetic acid (IDA) and characterized by FT-IR. Isotherm and kinetics of adsorption were studied and the experimental data fitted the Langmuir model and pseudo-second-order equation very well. An on-line method for simultaneous determination of trace V (V), Cr (VI), Pb (II), Cd (II), Co (II), Cu (II) and As (III) in biological samples was developed using this material as sorbent coupled with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). A series of experimental parameters, including sample pH, sample flow rate and loading time, eluting solution and the effect of interfering ions have been investigated systematically. Under the optimum experimental conditions, the enrichment factors for above metal ions were ranged from 66 to 101. Detection limit (3 s) was achieved at 1.3, 1.2, 0.70, 0.40, 2.5, 3.4, 0.79 ng L(-1), respectively. At the 1.0 µg L(-1) level, the precision (RSD, %) for 11 replicate measurements was from 1.0 to 4.0. In spiked biological samples, good recoveries (n=3) were obtained in the range of 90-110%. These results had proved that the proposed method was with good accuracy and could be applied to the analysis of trace metal ions in biological samples.