A chimeric adenovirus-vectored vaccine based on Beta spike and Delta RBD confers a broad-spectrum neutralization against Omicron-included SARS-CoV-2 variants.

Urgent research into innovative severe acute respiratory coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccines that may successfully prevent various emerging emerged variants, particularly the Omicron variant and its subvariants, is necessary. Here, we designed a chimeric adenovirus-vectored vaccine named Ad5-Beta/Delta. This vaccine was created by incorporating the receptor-binding domain from the Delta variant, which has the L452R and T478K mutations, into the complete spike protein of the Beta variant. Both intramuscular (IM) and intranasal (IN) vaccination with Ad5-Beta/Deta vaccine induced robust broad-spectrum neutralization against Omicron BA.5-included variants. IN immunization with Ad5-Beta/Delta vaccine exhibited superior mucosal immunity, manifested by higher secretory IgA antibodies and more tissue-resident memory T cells (TRM) in respiratory tract. The combination of IM and IN delivery of the Ad5-Beta/Delta vaccine was capable of synergically eliciting stronger systemic and mucosal immune responses. Furthermore, the Ad5-Beta/Delta vaccination demonstrated more effective boosting implications after two dosages of mRNA or subunit recombinant protein vaccine, indicating its capacity for utilization as a booster shot in the heterologous vaccination. These outcomes quantified Ad5-Beta/Delta vaccine as a favorable vaccine can provide protective immunity versus SARS-CoV-2 pre-Omicron variants of concern and BA.5-included Omicron subvariants.

cGAS-STING pathway agonists are promising vaccine adjuvants.

Adjuvants are of critical value in vaccine development as they act on enhancing immunogenicity of antigen and inducing long-lasting immunity. However, there are only a few adjuvants that have been approved for clinical use, which highlights the need for exploring and developing new adjuvants to meet the growing demand for vaccination. Recently, emerging evidence demonstrates that the cGAS-STING pathway orchestrates innate and adaptive immunity by generating type I interferon responses. Many cGAS-STING pathway agonists have been developed and tested in preclinical research for the treatment of cancer or infectious diseases with promising results. As adjuvants, cGAS-STING agonists have demonstrated their potential to activate robust defense immunity in various diseases, including COVID-19 infection. This review summarized the current developments in the field of cGAS-STING agonists with a special focus on the latest applications of cGAS-STING agonists as adjuvants in vaccination. Potential challenges were also discussed in the hope of sparking future research interests to further the development of cGAS-STING as vaccine adjuvants.

Cisplatin-induced oxPAPC release enhances MDSCs infiltration into LL2 tumour tissues through MCP-1/CCL2 and LTB4/LTB4R pathways.

Lung cancer is the leading global cause of cancer-related death, however, resistance to chemotherapy drugs remains a huge barrier to effective treatment. The elevated recruitment of myeloid derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) to tumour after chemotherapy has been linked to resistance of chemotherapy drugs. Nevertheless, the specific mechanism remains unclear. oxPAPC is a bioactive principal component of minimally modified low-density lipoproteins and regulates inflammatory response. In this work, we found that cisplatin, oxaliplatin and ADM all increased oxPAPC release in tumour. Treating macrophages with oxPAPC in vitro stimulated the secretion of MCP-1 and LTB4, which strongly induced monocytes and neutrophils chemotaxis, respectively. Injection of oxPAPC in vivo significantly upregulated the percentage of MDSCs in tumour microenvironment (TME) of wild-type LL2 tumour-bearing mice, but not CCL2-/- mice and LTB4R-/- mice. Critically, oxPAPC acted as a pro-tumor factor in LL2 tumour model. Indeed, cisplatin increased oxPAPC level in tumour tissues of WT mice, CCL2-/- and LTB4R-/- mice, but caused increased infiltration of Ly6Chigh monocytes and neutrophils only in WT LL2-bearing mice. Collectively, our work demonstrates cisplatin treatment induces an overproduction of oxPAPC and thus recruits MDSCs infiltration to promote the tumour growth through the MCP-1/CCL2 and LTB4/LTB4R pathways, which may restrict the effect of multiple chemotherapy. This provides evidence for a potential strategy to enhance the efficacy of multiple chemotherapeutic drugs in the treatment of lung cancer by targeting oxPAPC.

Pulmonary vascular system: A vulnerable target for COVID-19.

The number of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases has been increasing significantly, and the disease has evolved into a global pandemic, posing an unprecedented challenge to the healthcare community. Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2, the binding and entry receptor of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in hosts, is also expressed on pulmonary vascular endothelium; thus, pulmonary vasculature is a potential target in COVID-19. Indeed, pulmonary vascular thickening is observed by early clinical imaging, implying a tropism of SARS-CoV-2 for pulmonary vasculature. Recent studies reported that COVID-19 is associated with vascular endothelial damage and dysfunction along with inflammation, coagulopathy, and microthrombosis; all of these pathologic changes are the hallmarks of pulmonary vascular diseases. Notwithstanding the not fully elucidated effects of COVID-19 on pulmonary vasculature, the vascular endotheliopathy that occurs after infection is attributed to direct infection and indirect damage mainly caused by renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system imbalance, coagulation cascade, oxidative stress, immune dysregulation, and intussusceptive angiogenesis. Degradation of endothelial glycocalyx exposes endothelial cell (EC) surface receptors to the vascular lumen, which renders pulmonary ECs more susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection. The present article reviews the potential pulmonary vascular pathophysiology and clinical presentations in COVID-19 to provide a basis for clinicians and scientists, providing insights into the development of therapeutic strategies targeting pulmonary vasculature.

[Determination of dacarbazine in the urine of mice with melanoma by high performance liquid chromatography].

Dacarbazine (DTIC) is a first-line chemotherapy drug that is widely used in clinical practice for malignant melanoma. DTIC is metabolized by the liver in vivo. Some drugs are excreted in urine in the form of a prototype. Hence, DTIC in urine can be monitored to evaluate its utilization and conversion rate in the human body, and then to determine its therapeutic effect. Urine is the only body fluid that can be obtained in large quantities without damage, and it plays an important role in the analysis of body functions. However, the composition of urine is complex and there is large matrix interference, because of which trace analysis or trace component analysis is difficult. At present, the main analytical methods for DTIC are high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with/without mass spectrometry (MS). HPLC and HPLC-MS have the advantages of good separation effect, good selectivity, high detection sensitivity, automatic operation, and wide application range. Unfortunately, DTIC is a strongly polar and weakly basic compound; thus, it is difficult to achieve good separation and obtain good peak shapes by conventional reversed-phase chromatography. To overcome these defects, it is necessary to develop a novel method for the analysis of DTIC. In this study, mice were subjected to 12 h of fasting; then, blueberry anthocyanin was administered by gavage, and DTIC was administered by intraperitoneal injection. Then, morning urine was collected in a metabolic cage. Urine collection was continued every 4 days for a total of 5 times. Within 2 h, the collected urine was centrifuged (3000 g, 4℃) for 10 min to remove solids. The supernatant was stored in a refrigerator at-80℃. Before analysis, the urine samples were removed from the refrigerator and thawed naturally at room temperature. Then, the samples were treated by the acetone-sediment method, freeze-dried, dissolved in the mobile phase, and subjected to HPLC analysis with isocratic elution. The separation was performed on a Shimadzu-GL ODS column (250 mm×4.6 mm, 5 µm). The mobile phase was methanol/acetonitrile (1:1, v/v)-0.01 mol/L NaH2PO4 (pH 6.5; 20:80, v/v) at a flow rate of 1 mL/min. The detection wavelength, column temperature, and running time were 280 nm, 30℃, and 15 min, respectively. Under the optimized conditions, the retention time of DTIC was 5.3 min, and a good peak shape was obtained. The linearity ranged from 0.25 to 1000 µg/mL (r2=0.999). The limits of detection and quantification were calculated to be 0.12 µg/mL and 0.25 µg/mL based on signal-to-noise ratios of 3 and 10, respectively. At three spiked levels (50.0, 375, and 500 µg/mL), the average recoveries were 98.9%, 102%, and 99.1% with relative standard deviations (RSDs) of 3.2%, 1.3%, and 1.2% (n=5), respectively. The RSDs of the interday and intraday measurements were lower than 3.8% and 4.4%, respectively. The proposed method allowed for the accurate determination of DTIC in urine using a mixed organic solvent/phosphate buffer solution as the mobile phase, with equivalent elution for 15 min. This method was successfully applied to monitor the change in DTIC concentration in the urine of C57BL/6 mice in various stages of melanoma. The results demonstrate that the method is simple, reliable, and easy to apply.