COVID-19 and liver dysfunction: What nutritionists need to know.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 has brought serious challenges for the medical field. Patients with COVID-19 usually have respiratory symptoms. However, liver dysfunction is not an uncommon presentation. Additionally, the degree of liver dysfunction is associated with the severity and prognosis of COVID-19. Prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of malnutrition should be routinely recommended in the management of patients with COVID-19, especially in those with liver dysfunction. Recently, a large number of studies have reported that nutrition therapy measures, including natural dietary supplements, vitamins, minerals and trace elements, and probiotics, might have potential hepatoprotective effects against COVID-19-related liver dysfunction via their antioxidant, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, and positive immunomodulatory effects. This review mainly focuses on the possible relationship between COVID-19 and liver dysfunction, nutritional and metabolic characteristics, nutritional status assessment, and nutrition therapy to provide a reference for the nutritionists while making evidence-based nutritional decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Potential role of vitamin D in patients with diabetes, dyslipidaemia, and COVID-19.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 has become a worldwide public health crisis. Studies have demonstrated that diabetes and dyslipidaemia are common comorbidities and could be high-risk factors for severe COVID-19. Vitamin D, a group of fat-soluble compounds responsible for intestinal absorption of calcium, magnesium, and phosphate, has been widely used as a dietary supplement for the prevention and treatment of numerous diseases, including infectious and non-infectious diseases, due to its high cost-effectiveness; safety; tolerability; and anti-thrombotic, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, and immunomodulatory properties. In this letter to the editor, we mainly discuss the potential role of vitamin D in patients with diabetes, dyslipidaemia, and COVID-19.

Long noncoding RNA POU6F2-AS1 regulates lung cancer aggressiveness through sponging miR-34c-5p to modulate KCNJ4 expression.

It has been extensively reported that long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) were closely associated with multiple malignancies. The aim of our study was to investigate the effects and mechanism of lncRNA POU6F2-AS1 in lung adenocarcinoma (LADC).The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets provided us the information of LADC clinical samples. High-regulation of POU6F2-AS1 was presented in LADC tissues compared with adjacent normal tissues, which was correlated with poor outcome of LADC patients. Functional experiments in Calu-3 and NCI-H460 cells showed that POU6F2-AS1 significantly promoted LADC cell proliferation, colony formation, invasion and migration. Moreover, through online prediction, luciferase reporter assay and Pearson's correlation analysis, we found that POU6F2-AS1 may act as a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) of miR-34c-5p and facilitated the expression of potassium voltage-gated channel subfamily J member 4 (KCNJ4). The promoting effect of cell aggressiveness induced by POU6F2-AS1 was enhanced by KCNJ4, whilst was abrogated due to the overexpression of miR-34c-5p. Collectively, POU6F2-AS1 might function as a ceRNA through sponging miR-34c-5p to high-regulate KCNJ4 in LADC, which indicates that POU6F2-AS1 might be a promising therapeutic target with significant prognostic value for LADC treatment.

Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of dual acetylcholinesterase and phosphodiesterase 5A inhibitors in treatment for Alzheimer's disease.

With the recent research advances in molecular biology and technology, multiple credible hypotheses about the progress of Alzheimer's disease (AD) have been proposed; multi-target drugs have emerged as an innovative therapeutic approach for AD. Current clinical therapy for AD patients is mainly palliative treatment targeting acetylcholinesterase (AChE). Inhibition of phosphodiesterase 5A (PDE5A) has recently been validated as a potentially novel therapeutic approach for Alzheimer's disease (AD). In this work, series of new compounds were designed, synthesized and evaluated as dual cholinesterase and PDE5A inhibitor. Biological results revealed that some of these compounds display good biological activities against AChE with IC50 values about 44.67-169.80nM (donepezil IC50 50.12nM). Notably, compound 12 presented potent activities against PDE5A with IC50 values about 50µM (sildenafil IC50 12.59µM), and some of these compounds showed low cell toxicity to A549 cells in vitro.

[Study of infrared spectra of polyaluminum ferric chloride].

Mid-IR spectra of polyaluminum ferric chloride (PAFC) with different Al/Fe molar ratio were studied by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Some vibration bands were assigned. In the range of Al/Fe molar ratio < 3:7 and > 6:4, the delta bending vibration frequencies at 850-880 cm-1 of [formula: see text] and 930-970 cm-1 of [formula: see text] in PAFC vs Al/Fe molar ratio are linearly relalional. It shows that Fe(III) and Al(III) were taken place each other in [formula: see text] and [formula: see text], and these were the evidences for the presence of [formula: see text]. When Al/Fe molar ratio was close, [formula: see text] and [formula: see text] Al bulk bending vibration bands at 680 cm-1 and 625 cm-1 respectively became an overlapped and broad band at 640 cm-1. Correspondingly, the [formula: see text] and [formula: see text] delta bending vibration bands were weak markedly or even disappear. And these were the evidences for the presence of co-aggragation of Fe(III) and Al(III) hydroxyl polymers (Aluminous ferrihydrite). Intensity and frequency change of H-OH delta vibrations bands at 1,610-1,630 cm-1 vs Al/Fe molar ratio show: the amounts of coordinating water in Al-Fe hydroxyl co-aggragation compounds of PAFC are the highest and no longer change, as well as, the force of banding of coordinating water with center atoms is increasing when Al/Fe molar ratio > 6:4. These suggested that there are species structural Al-Fe hydroxyl co-aggragatin compounds and this is one of the causes that stability of PAFC solution can be keeped for a long time.