Integrated assessment of the pollution and risk of heavy metals in soils near chemical industry parks along the middle Yangtze River.

Industrialization in riparian areas of critical rivers has caused significant environmental and health impacts. Taking eight industrial parks along the middle Yangtze River as examples, this study proposes a multiple-criteria approach to investigate soil heavy metal pollution and associated ecological and health risks posed by industrial activities. Aiming at seven heavy metals, the results show that nickel (Ni), cadmium (Cd), and copper (Cu) exhibited the most significant accumulation above background levels. The comprehensive findings from Pearson correlation analysis, cluster analysis, principal component analysis, and industrial investigation uncover the primary sources of Cd, arsenic (As), mercury (Hg), and lead (Pb) to be chemical processing, while Ni and chromium (Cr) are predominantly derived from mechanical and electrical equipment manufacturing. In contrast, Cu exhibits a broad range of origins across various industrial processes. Soil heavy metals can cause serious ecological and carcinogenic health risks, of which Cd and Hg contribute to >70 % of the total ecological risk, and As contributes over 80 % of the total health risk. This study highlights the importance of employing multiple mathematical and statistical models in determining and evaluating environmental hazards, and may aid in planning the environmental remediation engineering and optimizing the industry standards.

The assessment on cross immunity with smallpox virus and antiviral drug sensitivity of the isolated mpox virus strain WIBP-MPXV-001 in China.

Since May 2022, human mpox cases have increased unexpectedly in non-endemic countries. The first imported case of human mpox in Hong Kong was reported in September 2022. Here we report the isolation and identification of MPXV from the vesicle swabs of this patient. In this research, the vesicle swabs were inoculated in Vero and Vero E6 cells. In addition to observing cytopathic effects (CPEs) in Vero or Vero E6 cells, the isolated virus was identified as mpox virus (MPXV) using quantitative Real-Time PCR (RT-PCR), transmission electron microscopy, and high-throughput sequencing. The experiment also assessed the cross-protective efficacy of sera from the smallpox vaccinated population and preliminarily assessed the inhibitory effect of anti-smallpox virus drugs against MPXV. CPEs can be observed on Vero E6 cells at 24 h and Vero cells at 48 h. The virus particles could be observed by transmission electron microscope, showing typical orthopoxvirus morphology. In addition, F3L and ATI genes which from MPXV A39R, B2R, HA genes which from orthopoxvirus were confirmed by conventional PCR and Sanger sequencing. The next generation sequencing (NGS) suggests that the MPXV strain belongs to B.1 branch of the West African linage, and has a high identity with the sequence of the 2022 ongoing outbreak. PRNT50 results showed that 26.7% of sera from individuals born before 1981 who had been immunized with smallpox were positive, but no MPXV-neutralizing antibodies were found in sera from individuals born later. All four anti-smallpox virus drugs evaluated demonstrated inhibition of mpox virus.

Water quality criteria and ecological risk assessment for ammonia in the Shaying River Basin, China.

Current Chinese surface water environmental quality standard GB3838-2002 for ammonia fails to take water quality factors and native organism distributions in different basins into consideration. In this study, ammonia toxicity tests were performed using three aquatic organisms native to the Shaying River Basin (China). Published ammonia toxicity data with pH and temperature, and toxicity data acquired in this study were used to establish water quality criteria. The final criterion maximum concentration (CMC) and criterion continuous concentration (CCC) for the Shaying River Basin were 5.09 and 1.36 (mg total ammonia nitrogen (TAN))/L (pH 7 and 20 °C), respectively. In addition, based on the corresponding relationship between ammonia toxicity and temperature and pH, the ecological risk assessment of ammonia was conducted in different seasons for the Shaying River using a tiered approach of both hazard quotient (HQ) and the joint probability (JPC) methods. Two methods gave consistent results: the ecological risks of ammonia to aquatic species in the Shaying River Basin were severe and the risk could be ranked as wet season > flat season > dry season. It is therefore indicating that monitoring, evaluation, and early warning of ammonia pollution need to be taken to prevent and control the risks posed by ammonia pollution, especially for wet season (because of high temperatures and pH) or flat season (because of high pH values). We hope the present work could provide valuable information to manage and control ammonia pollution in the Shaying River Basin.