Detection of COVID-19: A review of the current literature and future perspectives.

The rapid spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has led to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) worldwide pandemic. This unprecedented situation has garnered worldwide attention. An effective strategy for controlling the COVID-19 pandemic is to develop highly accurate methods for the rapid identification and isolation of SARS-CoV-2 infected patients. Many companies and institutes are therefore striving to develop effective methods for the rapid detection of SARS-CoV-2 ribonucleic acid (RNA), antibodies, antigens, and the virus. In this review, we summarize the structure of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, its genome and gene expression characteristics, and the current progression of SARS-CoV-2 RNA, antibodies, antigens, and virus detection. Further, we discuss the reasons for the observed false-negative and false-positive RNA and antibody detection results in practical clinical applications. Finally, we provide a review of the biosensors which hold promising potential for point-of-care detection of COVID-19 patients. This review thereby provides general guidelines for both scientists in the biosensing research community and for those in the biosensor industry to develop a highly sensitive and accurate point-of-care COVID-19 detection system, which would be of enormous benefit for controlling the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Dysregulated NF-κB signal promotes the hub gene PCLAF expression to facilitate nasopharyngeal carcinoma proliferation and metastasis.

BACKGROUND: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is common in Southern China. The molecular mechanism underlying NPC genesis and progression has been comprehensively investigated, but the key gene (s) or pathway (s) pertaining to NPC are unidentified. METHODS: We explored some key genes and pathways involved in NPC through using meta-analysis of deposited expression of microarray data of NPC. The expression of proliferating cell nuclear antigen clamp associated factor (PCLAF) was determined by real-time PCR and western blots. CCK-8 assay, colony formation assay, transwell migration assay, cell wound healing assay, cell cycle analysis and cell apoptosis were carried out to assess biological behaviors caused by downregulation and overexpression of PCLAF in vitro. CHIP was utilized to determine the direct upstream regulatory transcription factors of PCLAF. RESULTS: PCLAF was the key gene of NPC, which was significantly up-regulated in NPC cell line compared to the normal nasopharyngeal cell line. Additionally, in vitro assay has demonstrated the down-regulation and overexpression of PCLAF, resulted in significantly suppressed and enhanced NPC proliferation, metastasis and invasion respectively. Furthermore, the up-regulation of PCLAF in NPC is induced by direct binding of dysregulated NF-κB p50/RelB complex to the promoter of PCLAF. CONCLUSION: Our results offer a strategy for re-using the deposited data to find the key genes and pathways involved in pathogenesis of cancer. Our study has provided evidence of supporting the role of PCLAF in NPC genesis and progression.