Title: Serious COVID-19 may have a causal relationship with myocardial injury: A Mendelian randomization study.

Background: The association of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) with myocardial injury is not well known. This study explored the association between them using the Mendelian randomization (MR) method. Method: We obtained summary data from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) on myocardial injury and COVID-19 from public databases. Then, as tool variables, we chose single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with susceptibility and COVID-19 severity to investigate the causal relationship of COVID-19 with myocardial injury using inverse-variance weighting (IVW) as the primary approach. Finally, the reliability of the results was evaluated by performing sensitivity analyses. Results: As revealed by the IVW analyses, the seriously hospitalized patients with COVID-19 had causality with myocardial injury, with an ß of 0.14 and 95% confidence interval (CI) of 0.03-0.25 (p = 0.01). The results showed that COVID-19 with severe respiratory symptoms positively affected myocardial injury (ß = 0.11, 95% CI = 0.03-0.19; p = 0.005). Conclusion: According to this study, severe respiratory symptoms and hospitalization due to COVID-19 may increase the risk of myocardial injury.

[Research progress on alkaloid monomer analgesic preparations].

Pain is one of the problems that seriously affect people's quality of life for thousands of years. The causes of pain are complex and varied,and long-term pain can also lead to depression. It has become a research hotspot to develop analgesic preparations with significant drug effects and small side effects. Recent studies have shown that certain alkaloid monomers have analgesic targets such as γ-aminobutyric acid,cannabinoids,and capsaicin. If their preparation is applied to the analgesic field,they can make up for the defects such as strong addiction and side effects of traditional opioid and non-steroidal analgesic drugs,but there is no relevant literature to summarize the research results in this field. This article first introduces the mechanism of pain production and the target of analgesia. Based on this,the application status of alkaloid monomer analgesic preparations approved by China Food and Drug Administration( CFDA)( number varieties,type of dosage form,drug description,analgesic mechanism and advantages) was analyzed,and the research dynamics of alkaloid monomer analgesic preparations( new formulation and new technology) were reviewed. Finally,some problems in this field were pointed out,such as imperfect medication information,inadequate transformation of research results,and too few kinds of analgesic components in developed alkaloids. The development direction was also pointed out for the above problems,with a view to provide reference for further development and in-depth research.

Expression, purification and characterization of a recombinant antimicrobial peptide Hispidalin in Pichia pastoris.

Hispidalin is a novel antimicrobial peptide isolated from the seeds of Benincasa hispida and is reported to have broad antimicrobial activity against various bacterial and fungal pathogens. To produce significant amounts of Hispidalin, a recombinant Hispidalin with an N-terminal 6 × His tag and an enterokinase sequence, for the first time, was successfully expressed in Escherichia coli or Pichia pastoris cell factory. Results showed that the E. coli-derived recombinant Hispidalin did not show any antimicrobial activity against all the tested strains, whereas the P. pastoris-derived recombinant Hispidalin (rHispidalin) showed a broad antibacterial spectrum against five pathogenic bacteria of both Gram-negative and Gram-positive. rHispidalin also has bactericidal activity and completely killed all of the Staphylococcus aureus within 40 min. Additionally, rHispidalin showed a broad range of thermostability and pH stability, and a hemolytic activity of less than 2% even at a concentration of 300 µg/ml; it was resistant to trypsin and proteinase K, but was moderately sensitive to pepsin and papain. Moreover, rHispidalin effectively permeabilized the cytoplasmic membrane and disrupted the morphology of targeted bacterial cells. After an initial optimization was performed, the amount of rHispidalin accumulation could reach as high as 98.6 µg/ml. These results indicate that Hispidalin could be produced on a large scale by P. pastoris and has a great potential to be utilized as a new antibacterial agent for further development.

Value of Combined Detection of Serum CEA, CA72-4, CA19-9 and TSGF in the Diagnosis of Gastric Cancer.

BACKGROUND: To explore whether combined detection of serum tumor markers (CEA, CA72-4, CA19-9 and TSGF) improve the sensitivity and accuracy in the diagnosis of gastric cancer (GC). MATERIALS AND METHODS: An automatic chemiluminescence immune analyzer with matched kits were used to determine the levels of serum CEA, CA72-4, CA19-9 and TSGF in 45 patients with gastric cancer (GC group), 40 patients with gastric benign diseases (GBD group) hospitalized in the same period and 30 healthy people undergoing a physical examination. The values of those 4 tumor markers in the diagnosis of gastric cancer was analyzed. RESULTS: The levels of serum CEA, CA72-4, CA19-9 and TSGF of the GC group were higher than those of the GBD group and healthy examined people and the differences were significant (P<0.001). The area under receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves for single detection of CEA, CA72-4, CA19-9 and TSGF in the diagnosis of GC was 0.833, 0.805, 0.810 and 0.839, respectively. The optimal cutoff values for these 4 indices were 2.36 ng/mL, 3.06 U/mL, 5.72 U/ mL and 60.7 U/mL, respectively. With combined detection of tumor markers, the diagnostic power of those 4 indices was best, with an area under the ROC curve of 0.913 (95%CI 0.866~0.985), a sensitivity of 88.9% and a diagnostic accuracy of 90.4%. CONCLUSIONS: Combined detection of serum CEA, CA72-4, CA19-9 and TSGF increases the sensitivity and accuracy in diagnosis of GC, so it can be regarded as the important means for early diagnosis.

Effects of mechanical ventilation with different tidal volume on oxidative stress and antioxidant in lung.

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to investigate the changes in oxidative stress and antioxidants in lung tissue under different tidal volume ventilation conditions. METHODS: Forty-eight male Wistar rats were randomized into four groups, namely, group C, the control group, which was not ventilated, and groups C1, C2 and C3, the treatment groups, which were ventilated for 2 h with tidal volumes of 8, 30 and 42 ml/kg, respectively. The right middle lobe was assayed for malondialdehyde (MDA), the right posterior lobe was assayed using Western blotting for Nrf2, GCLm and SrX1 and the left lobe was assayed for Nrf2, GCLm and SrX1 mRNA. RESULTS: The MDA levels were increased in the three treatment groups, with MDA levels highest in group C3 and lowest in group C1 (C3 > C2 > C1) (all P < 0.05). The mRNA expression of Nrf2, GCLm and SrX1 was highest in group C3 and lowest in group 1 (C3 > C2 > C1) (all P < 0.05). No significant difference was observed between group C1 and group C (P > 0.05). A Western blot analysis showed that Nrf2, GCLm and SrX1 expression was highest in group C3 and lowest in group C1 (C3 > C2 > C1) (all P < 0.05). No significant difference was observed between group C1 and group C (P > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Oxidative stress and antioxidant enzyme levels in the lungs of rats were positively associated with the tidal volumes of mechanical ventilation, suggesting that higher tidal volumes cause more severe oxidative stress and increased antioxidant responses.