In December 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic quickly spread throughout China and beyond, posing enormo... more In December 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic quickly spread throughout China and beyond, posing enormous global challenges. With prompt, vigorous, and coordinated control measures, mainland China contained the spread of the epidemic within two months and halted the epidemic in three months. Aggressive containment strategy, hierarchical management, rational reallocation of resources, efficient contact tracing, and voluntary cooperation of Chinese citizens contributed to the rapid and efficient control of the epidemic, thus promoting the rapid recovery of the Chinese economy. This review summarizes China's prevention and control strategies and other public health measures, which may provide a reference for the epidemic control in other countries. Keywords China • COVID-19 pandemic • Infection control and management • Public health COVID-19 Pandemic At the beginning of 2020, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spread rapidly around the world, resulting in a pandemic, thus posing an urgent and severe threat to human health and global peace and development [1]. The outbreak was initially noticed in the largest city in central China-Wuhan, Hubei Province, which has a population of 11 million, and which serves as a regional economic and transportation hub. As the number of cases rapidly increased, medical resources quickly started to run out, and the initial situation was dire. The discovery of this novel disease and the subsequent epidemic provoked widespread fear in China. Due to the continuous efforts of Chinese medical workers and authorities, it took only slightly longer than one month after the initial outbreak to contain the spread of the disease and approximately two months to reduce the daily number of new cases in China to fewer than 10 [2]. Since then, China's pandemic prevention and control strategy has shifted to preventing cases from being imported that may lead to a rebound of the local epidemic [3]. The goal of this study is to summarize the prevention, control strategies, and measures adopted by the People's Republic of China during different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Chinese programs and their experience regarding local epidemic prevention and control may provide a reference for other countries and regions during the current global pandemic.
Background Asthma is a chronic disorder of both adults and children affecting more than 300 milli... more Background Asthma is a chronic disorder of both adults and children affecting more than 300 million people heath worldwide. Diagnose and treatment for asthma, particularly in childhood asthma have always remained a great challenge because of its complex pathogenesis and multiple triggers, such as allergen, viral infection, tobacco smoke, dust, etc. It is thereby great significant to deeply investigate the transcriptome changes in asthmatic children before and after desensitization treatment, in order that we could identify potential and key mRNAs and lncRNAs which might be considered as useful RNA molecules for observing and supervising desensitization therapy for asthma, which might guide the diagnose and therapy in childhood asthma. Methods In the present study, we performed a systematic transcriptome analysis based on the deep RNA sequencing of ten asthmatic children before and after desensitization treatment, including identification of lncRNAs using a stringent filtering pipeli...
Prevalence patterns of allergen sensitization by region, gender, age, and season among patients with allergic symptoms in mainland China: A four‐year multicenter study
Allergy
Changes in Prevalence Patterns of Allergen Sensitization During the COVID-19 Pandemic in South China: A Cross-Sectional Study from 2017 to 2020
SSRN Electronic Journal
Organism dual RNA‐seq reveals the importance of BarA/UvrY in Vibrio parahaemolyticus virulence
Background The current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by severe acute respi... more Background The current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-CoV-2, has become the most devastating public health emergency in the 21st century and one of the most influential plagues in history. Studies on the origin of SARS-CoV-2 have generally agreed that the virus probably comes from bat, closely related to a bat CoV named BCoV-RaTG13 taken from horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus affinis), with Malayan pangolin (Manis javanica) being a plausible intermediate host. However, due to the relatively low number of SARS-CoV-2-related strains available in public domain, the evolutionary history remains unclear. Methodology Nine hundred ninety-five coronavirus sequences from NCBI Genbank and GISAID were obtained and multiple sequence alignment was carried out to categorize SARS-CoV-2 related groups. Spike sequences were analyzed using similarity analysis and conservation analyses. Mutation analysis was used to identify variations within ...
Heparin-binding protein levels correlated with aggravation and multi-organ damage in severe COVID-19
ERJ Open Research
BackgroundCritically ill COVID-19 patients may suffer persistent systemic inflammation and multip... more BackgroundCritically ill COVID-19 patients may suffer persistent systemic inflammation and multiple organ failure, leading to a poor prognosis.Research QuestionTo examine the relevance of the novel inflammatory factor heparin-binding protein (HBP) in critically ill COVID-19 patients, and evaluate the correlation of the biomarker with disease progression.Study Design and MethodsEighteen critically ill COVID-19 patients who suffered from respiratory failure and sepsis, including 12 cases who experienced a rapidly deteriorating clinical condition and 6 cases without deterioration, were investigated. They were compared with 15 age- and sex- matched COVID-19 negative patients with respiratory failure. Clinical data were collected and HBP levels were investigated.ResultsHBP was significantly increased in critically ill COVID-19 patients following disease aggravation and tracked with disease progression. HBP elevation preceded the clinical manifestations for up to 5 days and was closely co...
ANSYS-MATLAB co-simulation of mucus flow distribution and clearance effectiveness of a new simulated cough device
International Journal for Numerical Methods in Biomedical Engineering
Currently, the rapid development of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) device brings new insight... more Currently, the rapid development of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) device brings new insights into the treatment of diabetic patients including those during pregnancy. Complexity and fractality have recently under fast development for extracting information embodied in glucose dynamics measured using CGM. Although scientists have investigated the difference of complexity in glucose dynamics between diabetes and non-diabetes in order to discover better approaches for diabetes care, no one has analyzed the complexity and fractality of glucose dynamics during the process of adopting CGM to successfully treat pregnant women with type 2 diabetes. Thus, we analyzed the complexity and fractality using power spectral density (PSD), multi-scale sample entropy (MSE) and multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis (MF-DFA) in a clinical case. Our results show that (i) there exists multifractal behavior in blood glucose dynamics; (ii) the alpha stable distribution fits to the glucose increment data better than the Gaussian distribution; and (iii) the "global" complexity indicated by multiscale entropy, spectrum exponent and Hurst exponent increase and the "local" complexity indicated by multifractal spectrum decrease after the successful therapy. Our results offer findings that may bring value to health care providers for managing glucose levels of pregnant women with type 2 diabetes as well as provide scientists a reference on applying complexity and fractality in the clinical practice of treating diabetes.
Liver is one of the most vital organs to maintain homeostasis because of its peculiar detoxificat... more Liver is one of the most vital organs to maintain homeostasis because of its peculiar detoxification functionalities to detoxify chemicals and metabolize drugs and toxins. Due to its crucial functions, the liver is also prone to various diseases, i.e., hepatitis, cirrhosis and hepatoma, etc. Additionally, long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) has emerged as key regulators which are found to play important roles in transcription, splicing, translation, replication, chromatin shaping and post translational modification of proteins in living cells. However, the underlying mechanisms of biological processes mediated by lncRNA remain unclear. Here, with the aim of disclosing potential lncRNAs implicated in the biological processes in liver in response to cytotoxicity, we performed a co-expression network analysis based on the transcriptome data of the damaged liver tissue of Rattus norvegicus induced by three cytotoxic compounds (carbon tetrachloride, chloroform and thioacetamide). Our analysis unveils that many biological processes and pathways were collectively affected by the three cytotoxic compounds, including drug metabolism, oxidation-reduction process, oxidative stress, glucuronidation, liver development and flavonoid biosynthetic process, etc. Also, our network analysis has identified several highly conserved lncRNA-mRNA interactions participating in those correlated processes and pathways, implying their potential roles in response to the induced cytotoxicity in liver. Our study provides new insights into lncRNA-mRNA regulatory mechanisms in response to pathogenic cytotoxic damaging in liver and facilitates the development of lncRNA-oriented therapies for hepatic diseases in the future.
Ybx1 has been demonstrated as a crucial gene in embryogenesis, reproduction as well as developmen... more Ybx1 has been demonstrated as a crucial gene in embryogenesis, reproduction as well as development in various vertebrates such as mouse and zebrafish. However, the underlying lncRNA-mediated mechanisms require deep investigation. Particularly, the importance of lncRNA to vertebrate development is controversial and questionable since many studies have yielded contradictory conclusions for the same lncRNAs. In the present study, in order to disclose the lncRNAs implicated in vertebrate development, a systematic transcriptome analysis is conducted based on the RNA sequencing data derived from ybx1 homozygous mutant zebrafish on day5 (day5_ybx1-/-) as well as wild type zebrafish on day5 and day6 (day5_ybx1+/+, day6_ybx1+/+). A high-confidence dataset of zebrafish lncRNAs is detected using a stepwise filtering pipeline. Differential expression analysis and co-expression network analysis reveal that several lncRNAs probably act on duox and noxo1a, the genes related to redox (reduction–oxi...
International journal of biological sciences, 2018
Sputum sounds are biological signals used to evaluate the condition of sputum deposition in a res... more Sputum sounds are biological signals used to evaluate the condition of sputum deposition in a respiratory system. To improve the efficiency of intensive care unit (ICU) staff and achieve timely clearance of secretion in patients with mechanical ventilation, we propose a method consisting of feature extraction of sputum sound signals using the wavelet transform and classification of sputum existence using artificial neural network (ANN). Sputum sound signals were decomposed into the frequency subbands using the wavelet transform. A set of features was extracted from the subbands to represent the distribution of wavelet coefficients. An ANN system, trained using the Back Propagation (BP) algorithm, was implemented to recognize the existence of sputum sounds. The maximum precision rate of automatic recognition in texture of signals was as high as 84.53%. This study can be referred to as the optimization of performance and design in the automatic technology for sputum detection using sp...
Screening and expressing HIV-1 specific antibody fragments in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Molecular Immunology
Yeast displaying techniques have been widely used for identifying novel single-chain variable fra... more Yeast displaying techniques have been widely used for identifying novel single-chain variable fragments (scFvs) and engineering their binding properties. In this study, we establish a set of vectors for scFv screening and production in the yeast system of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This suite includes a display vector pYS for screening of recombinant scFv libraries as well as an expression vector pYE for production of scFv candidates in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The display vector, pYS, give the identification of the HIV-1-specific scFv clones from one scFv display library by fluorescence-activated cell sorting. Subsequently, the expression vector pYE can offer high quality scFvs of interest up to hundreds of microgram scale for bioactivity analysis. As the result, one identified scFv was confirmed to exhibit HIV-1 neutralization activity in a cell line-based pseudovirus assay. The advantage of this system enables the identical post-translation of mammalian scFvs in the same host cells. Therefore, this vector set can be useful for the rapid screening and expression of antibody genes.
International journal of biological sciences, 2018
Pressure injuries have a high incidence in elderly and critically ill patients, and can endanger ... more Pressure injuries have a high incidence in elderly and critically ill patients, and can endanger lives in severe cases. The key to reducing the incidence of pressure injuries is to find an objective, noninvasive, automatic and consistent scientific method for assessing pressure injuries. To serve this need, we conducted a clinical study to investigate the potential of using transcutaneous oxygen tension (TcPO2) and transcutaneous carbon dioxide tension (TcPCO2) for assessing pressure injuries. From the results of the study we found that first, the values of TcPO2 and TcPCO2 are sensitive to the change of pressure imposed on the measured region and to the risk status of a pressure injury when a pressure is imposed. Second, the magnitude of change in TcPO2 and TcPCO2 is higher in patients with a high risk of a pressure injury compared with those who have a low risk. Third, TcPO2 and TcPCO2 are both significantly correlated with the Braden score, the widely used score for assessing the...
Antimicrobial agents and chemotherapy, Jan 6, 2018
Antibiotic resistance has become a global crisis. Studies on the mechanism of bacterial tolerance... more Antibiotic resistance has become a global crisis. Studies on the mechanism of bacterial tolerance to antibiotics will not only increase our conceptual understanding of bacterial death but also provide potential targets for novel inhibitors. We screened a mutant library containing a full set of in-frame deletion mutants of K-12 and identified 140 genes that possibly contribute to gentamicin tolerance. Deletion of increased the inhibition and killing potency against mid-log phase bacteria by aminoglycosides. Initially identified as a 16S rRNA methyltransferase, KsgA also has additional functions as a ribosomal biogenesis factor and a DNA glycosylase. We found that the methyltransferase activity of KsgA is responsible for the tolerance, as demonstrated by a site-directed mutagenesis analysis. In contrast to the mechanism for cold sensitivity, the decreased tolerance to aminoglycoside is not related to the failure of ribosomal biogenesis. Furthermore, the DNA glycosylase activity of Ksg...
International journal of biological sciences, 2018
The insulin-like growth factors (IGFs), IGF-I and IGF-II, are essential for regulating cell growt... more The insulin-like growth factors (IGFs), IGF-I and IGF-II, are essential for regulating cell growth, differentiation and metastasis of a broad range of malignancies. The IGF-I/II actions are mediated through the IGF receptor type 1 (IGF-1R) and the insulin receptor (IR), which are overexpressed in multiple types of tumors. Here, we have firstly identified a human engineered antibody domain (eAd) from a phage-displayed VH library. The eAd suppressed the signal transduction of IGF-1R mediated by exogenous IGF-I or IGF-II in breast cancer cell lines through neutralizing both IGF-I and IGF-II. It also significantly inhibited the growth of breast cancer cells. Therefore, the anti-IGF-I/II eAd offers an alternative approach to target both the IGF-1R signaling pathways through the inhibition of IGF-I/II.
Sputum in the trachea is hard to expectorate and detect directly for the patients who are unconsc... more Sputum in the trachea is hard to expectorate and detect directly for the patients who are unconscious, especially those in Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Medical staff should always check the condition of sputum in the trachea. This is time-consuming and the necessary skills are difficult to acquire. Currently, there are few automatic approaches to serve as alternatives to this manual approach. We develop an automatic approach to diagnose the condition of the sputum. Our approach utilizes a system involving a medical device and quantitative analytic methods. In this approach, the time-frequency distribution of respiratory sound signals, determined from the spectrum, is treated as an image. The sputum detection is performed by interpreting the patterns in the image through the procedure of preprocessing and feature extraction. In this study, 272 respiratory sound samples (145 sputum sound and 127 non-sputum sound samples) are collected from 12 patients. We apply the method of leave-one o...
International journal of biological sciences, 2017
With the fast development of wearable medical device in recent years, it becomes critical to cond... more With the fast development of wearable medical device in recent years, it becomes critical to conduct research on continuously measured physiological signals. Entropy is a key metric for quantifying the irregularity and/or complexity contained in human physiological signals. In this review, we focus on exploring how entropy changes in various physiological signals in cardiovascular diseases. Our review concludes that the direction of entropy change relies on the physiological signals under investigation. For heart rate variability and pulse index, the entropy of a healthy person is higher than that of a patient with cardiovascular diseases. For diastolic period variability and diastolic heart sound, the direction of entropy change is reversed. Our conclusion should not only give valuable guidance for further research on the application of entropy in cardiovascular diseases but also provide a foundation for using entropy to analyze the irregularity and/or complexity of physiological s...
Anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) therapies are successful in the treatment of inflammatory disord... more Anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) therapies are successful in the treatment of inflammatory disorders. However, some patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) fail to response anti-TNF drugs due to the compensation of other inflammatory signals. In this study, to reduce compensatory responses of interleukin-17A (IL-17A) during TNF-α inhibition, we generated an IgG-like bispecific antibodiy (bsAb) against TNF-α and IL-17A through a combination method of electrostatic Fc pairing and light chain crossover. This bsAb exhibited relatively high stability comparable to natural IgG antibodies, and retained the unaltered affinities to both of two targets. BsAb significantly decreased not only the expression level of neutrophil or Th17 chemokines, but also the secretion of IL-6/IL-8 on fibroblast-like synoviocytes (FLS) from a patient with RA. Meanwhile, TNF-α-mediated cellular cytotoxicity of fibroblasts was neutralized by bsAb. Importantly, we demonstrate that the combined blockade of TNF-α and IL-17A is more efficient than inhibition of either factor alone. Our results suggest the IgG-like anti-TNF-α/IL-17A bispecific molecule overcome the limited therapeutic responses using anti-TNF drugs. It may be a promising therapeutic agent for the treatment of autoimmune diseases.
Influence of Bronchial Diameter Change on the airflow dynamics Based on a Pressure-controlled Ventilation System
International Journal for Numerical Methods in Biomedical Engineering
Bronchial diameter is a key parameter that affects the respiratory treatment of mechanically vent... more Bronchial diameter is a key parameter that affects the respiratory treatment of mechanically ventilated patients. In this paper, to reveal the influence of bronchial diameter on the airflow dynamics of pressure-controlled mechanically ventilated patients, a new respiratory system model is presented that combines multigeneration airways with lungs. Furthermore, experiments and simulation studies to verify the model are performed. Finally, through the simulation study, it can be determined that in airway generations 2 to 7, when the diameter is reduced to half of the original value, the maximum air pressure (maximum air pressure in lungs) decreases by nearly 16%, the maximum flow decreases by nearly 30%, and the total airway pressure loss (sum of each generation pressure drop) is more than 5 times the original value. Moreover, in airway generations 8 to 16, with increasing diameter, the maximum air pressure, maximum flow, and total airway pressure loss remain almost constant. When the diameter is reduced to half of the original value, the maximum air pressure decreases by 3%, the maximum flow decreases by nearly 5%, and the total airway pressure loss increases by 200%. The study creates a foundation for improvement in respiratory disease diagnosis and treatment.
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Papers by Douglas Zhang