The viral, epidemiologic, clinical characteristics and potential therapy options for COVID-19: a review.

Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection has rapidly spread all over the world, in just two months. As of 27 March, globally, 509,164 cases confirmed included 23,335 deaths in approximately 150 countries. Recently, WHO has defined COVID-19 as a global pandemic, and considerable researches have focused on the identification and prevention of SARS-CoV-2. As a result, accumulated publications successively reported their early findings, leading to the constant updating of information, which might make confusion for readers. Therefore, this review summarized the current researches about the genomic evolution, variation of SARS-CoV-2, and demonstrated its viral structure for pathogenesis. Meanwhile, we analyzed the epidemiologic and clinical characteristics of COVID-19, in order to provide recommendations for present clinical treatments and inspirations for potential therapy options.

A meta-analysis of the effect of microRNA-34a on the progression and prognosis of gastric cancer.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the value of microRNA-34a (miR-34a) as a diagnostic biomarker of gastric cancer development and prognosis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, CNKI, Wanfang Database and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) were searched according to the key words for the literature about the expression of microRNA-34a in the serum or tissues of gastric cancer patients. The data of gene expression were extracted and the data were analyzed by Stata 14.0 software to explore the significance of the difference of microRNA-34a expression in the development and prognosis of gastric cancer patients. RESULTS: The expression of microRNA-34a was significantly lower in gastric cancer tissues and significantly lower in metastatic gastric cancer tissues. The 5-year survival rate of gastric cancer patients was also significantly lower. CONCLUSIONS: The low expression of microRNA-34a can promote the progression of gastric cancer and reduce the prognosis of patients. MicroRNA-34a can be used as an important biomarker of gastric cancer progression and prognosis.

Functional and mutational analyses of an omega-class glutathione S-transferase (GSTO2) that is required for reducing oxidative damage in Apis cerana cerana.

Glutathione S-transferases perform a variety of vital functions, particularly in reducing oxidative damage. Here, we investigated the expression patterns of Apis cerana cerana omega-class glutathione S-transferase 2 (AccGSTO2) under various stresses and explored its connection with antioxidant defences. We found that AccGSTO2 knockdown by RNA interference triggered increased mortality in Ap. cerana cerana, and immunohistochemistry revealed significantly decreased AccGSTO2 expression, particularly in the midgut and fat body. Further analyses indicated that AccGSTO2 knockdown resulted in decreases in catalase and glutathione reductase activities, ascorbate content and the ratio of reduced to oxidized glutathione, and increases in H2 O2 , malondialdehyde and carbonyl contents. We also analysed the transcripts of other antioxidant genes and found that many genes were down-regulated in the AccGSTO2 knockdown samples, revealing that AccGSTO2 may be indispensable for attaining a normal lifespan by enhancing cellular oxidative resistance. In addition, the roles of cysteine residues in AccGSTO2 were explored using site-directed mutagenesis. Mutants of Cys(28) and Cys(124) significantly affected the enzyme and antioxidant activities of AccGSTO2, which may be attributed to the changes in the spatial structures of mutants as determined by homology modelling. In summary, these observations provide novel insight into the structural and functional characteristics of GSTOs.

An exploratory analysis of dynamic change of metabolic syndrome in relation to the risk of developing cardiovascular disease in a chinese cohort.

BACKGROUND: Metabolic syndrome (MS) is the syndrome closely related to cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors. Few prospective studies have compared the impact of dynamic changes of MS on the development of cardiovascular diseases (CVD). METHODS: Overall, 3461 subjects were recruited from a cohort study on Prevention of Multiple Metabolic disorders and MS in Jiangsu of China (PMMJS) with a follow up of 3.8 years. The associations between the dynamic changes (Difference, the value at first follow-up subtract the value at baseline) of MS, component numbers, components and relative risk (RR) of CVD were analyzed by using Cox regression model. RESULTS: The total incidence standardized rate of CVD was 2.58%,and the incidence standardized rates of CVD in MS-/follow-up MS-,baseline MS-/follow-up MS+, baseline MS+/follow-up MS- and baseline MS+/follow-up groups were 2.05%,5.01%,1.65% and 4.39% separately. After adjustment confounding factors Difference in FPG, BP and TG have significantly effects on the incidence of CVD. CONCLUSION: Difference of MS component numbers had the prediction ability of CVD, but MS groups based on baseline and first follow-up MS and/or non-MS had not. In Chinese, the dynamic change of MS component numbers was a useful predict factor for CVD.

Review of Chinese clinical trials on CIK cell treatment for malignancies

China is the country where the most clinical trials on CIK cells have been performed. We aimed to provide definite evidence for using CIK cell treatment and extrapolate a common applicative standard for malignancies. We chose the VIP database of Chinese scientific and technological journals to search the literature. We entered the keywords "CIK" or "xi bao yin zi you dao de sha shang xi bao" (the equivalent Chinese phrase for CIK cells, by Chinese characters) and searched for in vivo human trials. In 24 collected trials, 936 patients were treated with CIK cells, 525 men and 246 women. The cultivation time of CIK cells ranged from 7 to 28 days. In five studies, CIK cells were co-cultured with dendritic cells. The total number of CIK cells used ranged from 6×10(6) to 1.5×10(10). The total number of DC-CIK cells used ranged from 1×10(9) to 1.3×10(10). In all studies, those immune parameters and tumour markers examined increased, but not all increased significantly. Of the reported 563 patients, 40 had a complete response, 126 had a partial response, 125 had a minimal response, 135 had stable disease and 58 had progressive disease. The remaining 76 patients did not reach an objective response. The total response rate was 51.7% (291/563). The toxicities were slight. CIK cell treatment is a promising and safe modality for treating malignancies. We proposed a standard for cultivating CIK cells (AU)