• Clinical and Experimental Vaccine Research
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• 제12권2호
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• pp.107-115
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• 2023

Purpose: The present study aimed to study the immunogenicity of the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine in patients with hematologic malignancies. Materials and Methods: This prospective cohort study of hematology patients aimed to evaluate their antibody levels against the receptor-binding domain of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 spike protein and seroconversion rates following two doses of the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine. Between June and July 2021, we enrolled 61 patients and included 44 patients in our analysis. Antibody levels were assessed 8 and 4 weeks after the first and second injections, respectively, and compared with those of a healthy group. Results: Eight weeks after the first dose, the geometric mean antibody level was 1.02 binding antibody units (BAU)/mL in the patient group and 37.91 BAU/mL in the healthy volunteer group (p<0.01). Four weeks after the second dose, the geometric mean antibody level was 9.44 BAU/mL in patients and 641.6 BAU/mL in healthy volunteers (p<0.01). The seroconversion rates 8 weeks after the first dose were 27.27% and 98.86% in the patient and healthy volunteer groups, respectively (p<0.001). The seroconversion rate 4 weeks after the second dose was 47.73% in patients and 100% in healthy volunteers. Factors leading to lower seroconversion rates were rituximab therapy (p=0.002), steroid therapy (p<0.001), and ongoing chemotherapy (p=0.048). Factors that decreased antibody levels were hematologic cancer (p<0.001), ongoing chemotherapy (p=0.004), rituximab (p<0.001), steroid use (p<0.001), and absolute lymphocyte count <1,000/mm³ (p=0.009). Conclusion: Immune responses were impaired in individuals with hematologic malignancies, particularly patients undergoing ongoing therapy and B-cell-depleting therapy. Additional vaccinations should be considered for these patients, and further investigated.

• 수면정신생리
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• 제29권2호
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• pp.29-34
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• 2022

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which was a global pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is still a serious public health problem. COVID-19 causes various symptoms not only in the respiratory system but also in various parts of the body and has a significant effect on sleep. Insomnia and poor sleep quality were observed at high rates in patients with COVID-19 as well as in the uninfected general population. Obstructive sleep apnea is also considered a risk factor in patients with severe COVID-19. Virus-induced central nervous system damage is likely to be the cause of many sleep disorders in COVID-19, but psychosocial influences also seem to have played a significant role. Sleep problems persisted at high rates for a considerable period after the infection phase was over. More attention and research on the effect of COVID-19 on sleep is needed in the future.

• 대한임상검사과학회지
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• 제53권3호
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• pp.257-265
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• 2021

코로나바이러스감염증-19는 사람의 호흡기관에 다수로 분포하는 안지오텐신전환효소2, angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2)를 매개하여 감염을 일으키는 β-genus 바이러스이고 완치환자 및 백신 접종자의 항체생성에 대한 효율적인 사후관리가 필요한 질병을 유발하는 바이러스다. 이 논문에서는 임상 시료의 중화항체와 특이적으로 반응하는 재조합 단백질을 개발하고 이를 이용하여 COVID-19 바이러스에 대한 중화항체를 빠르고 편리하게 진단하는 신속 진단 키트를 개발하고 그것의 성능 평가를 통하여 제품화 가능성을 확인하는 것을 목표로 하였다. COVID-19 S1 RBD 재조합 단백질을 사용한 신속 진단 키트의 양성 퍼센트 일치(PPA) 및 음성 퍼센트 일치(NPA)가 미국 FDA EUA에서 승인한 ELISA 키트와 비교했을 때 각각 100% 및 98.3%인 점에서 신속 진단 키트에 적용할 수 있을 것으로 확인하였다. 향후 신속 진단 키트의 성능을 개선하고 정량 분석 장비를 통해 중화항체를 정량적으로 분석이 가능하면 제품화 통해 검체내의 중화항체 유무와 양을 확인함으로써 COVID-19 바이러스에 대한 면역성을 예측하고 추가 예방접종 여부를 판단하는 중요한 자료로 활용될 수 있을 것으로 생각한다.

• 한국군사과학기술학회지
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• 제27권1호
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• pp.107-115
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• 2024

Various vaccines were rapidly developed during the COVID-19 pandemic to prevent and treat infections but global infections continue, and concerns about new mutations and infectious diseases persist. Thus, active research focuses on developing, producing, and supplying vaccines and treatments for various infectious diseases and potential pandemics. Natural killer(NK) cells, as innate immune cells, can recognize and eliminate abnormal cells like virus-infected and cancer cells. Hence, their development as anticancer and antiviral treatments is rapidly advancing. In this study, optimal short-term culture conditions were identified for allogeneic NK cells by simplifying the culture process through the isolation of NK cells(referred to as NKi cells) and eliminating CD3+ cells(referred to as CD3- cells). NK cells demonstrated reduced viral titer in injection of NK cells into SARS-CoV-2 infected ACE-tg mice increased survival. The study's findings could form the basis for an antiviral treatment platform that swiftly responds to new viral disease pandemics.

• 셀메드
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• 제10권4호
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• pp.29.1-29.6
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• 2020

COVID-19 (Corona Virus Disease-2019) is an infectious respiratory disease caused by the most recently discovered coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Corona virus-2). This new viral disease was unknown before the outbreak began in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. As of November 16th 2020, it affects about 54.3 million populations, death troll increased to 1.32 million cases in worldwide. Whereas in India 8.85 cases are infected with COVID-19, of which 1, 30, 112 cases were died. Till now there has been no specific anti-virus drug or vaccines are available for the treatment of this disease, the supportive care and non-specific treatment to the symptoms of the patient are the only options in Biomedicine, the entire world turns its attention towards alternative medicine or Traditional medicine. Siddha medicine is one of the primordial systems of medicine practiced in the southern part of India, it dealt a lot about pandemic, and its management. This review provides an insight into Pandemic in Siddha system and its management in both ancient history and modern history, National and state level Government policies related to current pandemic, World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines on usage of unproven drug during infectious disease outbreak, Preparedness of Siddha system during a pandemic outbreak Challenges and Recommendations.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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• 제21권1호
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• pp.27-33
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• 2021

The whole world now is dealing with Coronavirus, and it has turned to be one of the most widespread and long-lived pandemics of our times. Reports reveal that the infectious disease has taken toll of the almost 80% of the world's population. Amidst a lot of research going on with regards to the prediction on growth and transmission through Symptomatic carriers of the virus, it can't be ignored that pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic carriers also play a crucial role in spreading the reach of the virus. Classification Algorithm has been widely used to classify different types of COVID-19 carriers ranging from simple feature-based classification to Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). This research paper aims to present a novel technique using a Random Forest Machine learning algorithm with hyper-parameter tuning to classify different types COVID-19-carriers such that these carriers can be accurately characterized and hence dealt timely to contain the spread of the virus. The main idea for selecting Random Forest is that it works on the powerful concept of "the wisdom of crowd" which produces ensemble prediction. The results are quite convincing and the model records an accuracy score of 99.72 %. The results have been compared with the same dataset being subjected to K-Nearest Neighbour, logistic regression, support vector machine (SVM), and Decision Tree algorithms where the accuracy score has been recorded as 78.58%, 70.11%, 70.385,99% respectively, thus establishing the concreteness and suitability of our approach.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• 제21권2호
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• pp.16.1-16.14
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• 2023

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a viral infection produced by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus epidemic, which was declared a global pandemic in March 2020. The World Health Organization has recorded around 43.3 billion cases and 59.4 million casualties to date, posing a severe threat to global health. Severe COVID-19 indicates viral pneumonia caused by the SARS-CoV-2 infections, which can induce fatal consequences, including acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). The purpose of this research is to better understand the COVID-19 and ARDS pathways, as well as to find targeted single nucleotide polymorphism. To accomplish this, we retrieved over 100 patients' samples from the Sequence Read Archive, National Center for Biotechnology Information. These sequences were processed through the Galaxy server next generation sequencing pipeline for variant analysis and then visualized in the Integrative Genomics Viewer, and performed statistical analysis using t-tests and Bonferroni correction, where six major genes were identified as DNAH7, CLUAP1, PPA2, PAPSS1, TLR4, and IFITM3. Furthermore, a complete understanding of the genomes of COVID-19-related ARDS will aid in the early identification and treatment of target proteins. Finally, the discovery of novel therapeutics based on discovered proteins can assist to slow the progression of ARDS and lower fatality rates.

• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• 제11권2호
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• pp.173-177
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• 2006

In this study, a novel strategy was developed for the highly selective immobilization of proteins, using the polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) depolymerase substrate binding domain (SBD) as an active binding domain. In order to determine the appropriacy of this method for immunodiagnostic assays, the single-chain antibody (ScFv) against the hepatitis B virus (HBV) preS2 surface protein and the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) envelope protein (SCVe) were fused to the SBD, then directly immobilized on PH A-coated slides via microspotting. The fluorescence-labeled HBV antigen and the antibody against SCVe were then utilized to examine specific interactions on the PHA-coated surfaces. Fluorescence signals were detected only at the spotted positions, thereby indicating a high degree of affinity and selectivity for their corresponding antigens/antibodies. Furthermore, we detected small amounts of ScFv-SBD (2.7 ng/mL) and SCVe-SBD fusion proteins (0.6ng/mL). Therefore, this microarray platform technology, using PHA and SBD, appears generally appropriate for immunodiagnosis, with no special requirements with regard to synthetic or chemical modification of the biomolecules or the solid surface.

• Molecules and Cells
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• 제45권12호
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• pp.911-922
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• 2022

A structural protein of SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2), nucleocapsid (N) protein is phosphorylated by glycogen synthase kinase (GSK)-3 on the serine/arginine (SR) rich motif located in disordered regions. Although phosphorylation by GSK-3β constitutes a critical event for viral replication, the molecular mechanism underlying N phosphorylation is not well understood. In this study, we found the putative alpha-helix L/FxxxL/AxxRL motif known as the GSK-3 interacting domain (GID), found in many endogenous GSK-3β binding proteins, such as Axins, FRATs, WWOX, and GSKIP. Indeed, N interacts with GSK-3β similarly to Axin, and Leu to Glu substitution of the GID abolished the interaction, with loss of N phosphorylation. The N phosphorylation is also required for its structural loading in a virus-like particle (VLP). Compared to other coronaviruses, N of Sarbecovirus lineage including bat RaTG13 harbors a CDK1-primed phosphorylation site and Gly-rich linker for enhanced phosphorylation by GSK-3β. Furthermore, we found that the S202R mutant found in Delta and R203K/G204R mutant found in the Omicron variant allow increased abundance and hyper-phosphorylation of N. Our observations suggest that GID and mutations for increased phosphorylation in N may have contributed to the evolution of variants.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• 제22권3호
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• pp.22.1-22.25
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• 2022

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndromecoronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), has spread over the world causing a pandemic which is still ongoing since its emergence in late 2019. A great amount of effort has been devoted to understanding the pathogenesis of COVID-19 with the hope of developing better therapeutic strategies. Transcriptome analysis using technologies such as RNA sequencing became a commonly used approach in study of host immune responses to SARS-CoV-2. Although substantial amount of information can be gathered from transcriptome analysis, different analysis tools used in these studies may lead to conclusions that differ dramatically from each other. Here, we re-analyzed four RNA-sequencing datasets of COVID-19 samples including human bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, nasopharyngeal swabs, lung biopsy and hACE2 transgenic mice using the same standardized method. The results showed that common features of COVID-19 include upregulation of chemokines including CCL2, CXCL1, and CXCL10, inflammatory cytokine IL-1β and alarmin S100A8/S100A9, which are associated with dysregulated innate immunity marked by abundant neutrophil and mast cell accumulation. Downregulation of chemokine receptor genes that are associated with impaired adaptive immunity such as lymphopenia is another common feather of COVID-19 observed. In addition, a few interferon-stimulated genes but no type I IFN genes were identified to be enriched in COVID-19 samples compared to their respective control in these datasets. These features are in line with results from single-cell RNA sequencing studies in the field. Therefore, our re-analysis of the RNA-seq datasets revealed common features of dysregulated immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 and shed light to the pathogenesis of COVID-19.