DAPTEV: Deep aptamer evolutionary modelling for COVID-19 drug design

Typical drug discovery and development processes are costly, time consuming and often biased by expert opinion. Aptamers are short, single-stranded oligonucleotides (RNA/DNA) that bind to target proteins and other types of biomolecules. Compared with small-molecule drugs, aptamers can bind to their targets with high affinity (binding strength) and specificity (uniquely interacting with the target only). The conventional development process for aptamers utilizes a manual process known as Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment (SELEX), which is costly, slow, dependent on library choice and often produces aptamers that are not optimized. To address these challenges, in this research, we create an intelligent approach, named DAPTEV, for generating and evolving aptamer sequences to support aptamer-based drug discovery and development. Using the COVID-19 spike protein as a target, our computational results suggest that DAPTEV is able to produce structurally complex aptamers with strong binding affinities. Author summaryCompared with small-molecule drugs, aptamer drugs are short RNAs/DNAs that can specifically bind to targets with high strength. With the interest of discovering novel aptamer drugs as an alternative to address the long-lasting COVID-19 pandemic, in this research, we developed an artificial intelligence (AI) framework for the in silico design of novel aptamer drugs that can prevent the SARS-CoV-2 virus from entering human cells. Our research is valuable as we explore a novel approach for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection and the AI framework could be applied to address future health crises.

Primary characterization of the immune responses in Tibetan pigs infected with Chinese Tibet isolate of Trichinella spiralis.

BACKGROUND: Trichinellosis, caused by Trichinella spiralis, is a serious foodborne parasitic zoonosis. Tibetan pig is an infrequent, endemic plateau pig species, mainly distributed in Tibet Plateau, China. Because of the free-range system, Tibetan pigs are at risk of infection with Trichinella. The present study aimed to primarily profile the characteristics of T. spiralis infection in Tibetan pigs, including IgG levels, larvae burdens, and cytokines. RESULTS: The immune responses to Chinese Tibet T. spiralis isolate infection in Tibetan pigs with different doses were investigated in a tracking duration of 49 days. The muscle larvae per gram (lpg) were evaluated at 105 days post-infection (dpi). The results showed that the mean larval number of T. spiralis in Tibetan pigs increased with infective dose, with average lpg values of 3.5, 50.4 and 115.6 for Tibetan pigs infected with 200, 2,000, and 20,000 muscle larvae (ML) of T. spiralis. The anti-Trichinella IgG increased with inoculum dose and dpi, and peaked at 49 dpi. The kinetics of cytokines in the sera was detected by microarray, including interferon-γ (IFN-γ), interleukin (IL)-1ß, IL-8, IL-12, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, Granulocyte-macrophage Colony Stimulating Factor (GM-CSF), tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α and transforming growth factor (TGF)-ß1. The Th1/Th2 mixed cytokines were detectable in all samples. Interleukin-12 demonstrated the highest concentration compared to other cytokines and peaked at 42 dpi. Almost all cytokines were maintained at a high level at 42 dpi. Additionally, we also report a Trichinella seropositive rate of 43.9 % (18 out of 41) from field samples of Tibetan pigs. CONCLUSIONS: The present study showed an increased Th1/Th2 mixed cytokines in Tibetan pigs elicited by T. spiralis. The high seroprevalence of Trichinella infection in field samples of Tibetan pigs further raises serious concern for the prevention and control of trichinellosis in this host for public health safety.

Advances in research on echinococcus shiquicus tapeworm / 中华预防医学杂志

Echinococcosis is an age-old disease that causes serious damage to the animal husbandry and the human health perennially. As a newly discovered species of Echinococus, E. shiquicus has the potential public health significance and could be a potential parasitic zoonosis. In this review, its etiology, life cycle, epidemiology, detection and diagnoses, public health etc. are discussed or summarized. Also, a series of comparisons among E. granulosus, E. multilocularis and E. shiquicus are made.

Recombinant protein of Echinococcus g ranulosus EG95 / 中国人兽共患病学报

Echinococcosis (hydatid disease) caused by the metacestodes of Echinococcus granulosus tapeworm is a seri-ous zoonotic infection ,which leads to a large amount of economic loss in human and animals .It needs to be prevented urgently . The EG95 protein is highly conserved and crucial for survival and development of E .granulosus in the host ,which means that it is one of the potential candidate antigens for vaccines characterized so far .Great effort has been made to construct and ex-press the recombinant EG95 (rEG95) gene in various kinds of expression systems in order to obtain an efficient defined antigen . This review will summarize research progress on expression of rEG95 in different vector systems .

Biological characteristics of Echinococcus f elidis / 中国人兽共患病学报

This review focuses on biological characteristics of Echinococcus f elidis including molecular genetic markers , species status ,host coverage ,geographical distribution ,epidemiological implications ,phylogeny ,and evolution .The molecular genetic markers are involved in mitochondrial cox1 (cytochrome C oxidase subunit 1) and nad1 (nicotinamide adenine dinucle-otide dehydrogenase subunit 1) genes ,nuclear protein-coding gene sequences such as elp (ezrin-radixin-moesin-like protein) , e f1a (elongation factor 1 alpha) ,pepck (phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase ) ,pold (DNA polymerase delta ) ,and ribosome RNA gene sequences such as ITS1 and 18S rRNA .The establishment of species status is based on distinctly discriminated mor-phological characteristics such as hooks on the rostrum with apparent rugae ,the special definitive host (lions) ,and divergence of DNA sequences ,etc .between E . f elidis and other Echinococcus species .In brief ,the review has provided researchers and ex-perts in the field of echinococcosis with fundamental background knowledge and guidelines for future research directions ,clinical and epidemiological investigations ,and prevention and control of echinococcosis .

Influence of sex on the prognosis of acute ST elevated myocardial infarction after primary percutaneous coronary intervention / 中国综合临床

Objective To study the influence of sex on the prognosis in acute ST elevated myocardial in- farction(STEMI)patients after primary percutaneous coronary intervention(PCI).Methods :The risk factors, coronary angiography and prognosis in 478 males and 101 females with STEMl were compared.Results:Mortality of STEMI was significantly different in different age groups(P<0.01).The attack of the STEMI in women was 10 vears later than that of men(P<0.01),especially in those women whose age was over 71 years oId.The complica- tion ratio of hypertension and type 2 mellitus diabetes was higher in female patients than that in male(P<0.01). More multi-vessel lesions were found in female patients than those in male(P<0.01).The incidence of in-hospital mortality,pseudoaneurysm,haematoma Was significantly higher in females than in males(P<0.05.P<0.01).Con- clusions The in-hospital mortalitv and puncture complications in STEMI female patients treated with primary PCI are higher than male patients.