Association of the Serum Angiotensin II Level with Disease Severity in Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Patients.

OBJECTIVE: Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is an emerging infectious disease caused by a novel Bunyavirus. Recent data suggest that the physiological balance of multiple proinflammatory cytokines is substantially changed in cases of severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV) infection, and the inflammatory response probably plays an important role in disease progression. Angiotensin II is an important active substance of the renin-angiotensin system, and studies have demonstrated that angiotensin II is involved in key events in the inflammatory process and can regulate inflammatory cell responses. METHODS: In order to elucidate the role of angiotensin II in the pathogenesis of SFTS, we collected serum samples from SFTS patients in the acute or convalescent phase and tested the angiotensin II levels using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay as well as SFTSV viral RNA with real-time reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction. Furthermore, we explored possible correlations between the angiotensin II levels and clinical parameters in SFTS patients. RESULTS: Our data showed that the serum level of angiotensin II was significantly increased in the acute phase compared with that seen in the convalescent phase and the healthy controls, while there were no significant differences between the convalescent cases and healthy controls (p>0.05). A correlation analysis demonstrated that the level of angiotensin II positively correlated with the SFTS viral RNA load. The angiotensin II levels were also found to be correlated with clinical parameters indicating impairments in organ functions. Moreover, we also found that the angiotensin II levels were significantly increased in the severe cases versus the non-severe cases (p<0.001). CONCLUSION: The serum angiotensin II levels in SFTS patients may be used to stratify the disease severity and are possibly predictive of disease outcomes.

A facile room temperature iodination route to in situ fabrication of patterned copper-iodide/silicon quasi-bulk-heterojunction thin films for photovoltaic application.

Fabrication of a monocrystalline silicon based heterojunction film at room-temperature in a time-efficient manner is desirable for energy and environmental considerations. In this report, a gas-solid phase direct elemental reaction (DER) route to realize this aim by firstly depositing an elemental copper layer on a monocrystalline silicon surface followed by a reaction with iodine vapor is described. The samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Raman spectroscopy, photoelectrochemical measurements, and the transient photovoltage (TPV) technique. The novelty of the current work lies in the following three aspects: (1) formation of an in situ CuI/Si quasi-bulk-heterojunction at room temperature is assisted by the infiltrated elemental copper layer being completely transformed into a γ phase copper iodide (γ-CuI) thin film; (2) the virgin monocrystalline silicon is pretreated to ensure a pyramidally patterned rough surface which facilitates the construction of quasi-bulk-heterojunction thin films and enhances their chemical stability and mechanical stability; (3) the photovoltaic performance and mechanism of the resulting CuI/Si quasi-bulk-heterojunction based solar cell was detected and evaluated for the first time by a combination of photoelectrochemical and TPV techniques, which demonstrates that the intensity of the interface electric field as well as the open circuit potential can be adjusted by tuning the amount of CuI coated on the pyramidally patterned n-Si substrate.

Controlled in situ fabrication of Ag2O/AgO thin films by a dry chemical route at room temperature for hybrid solar cells.

Silver oxides (Ag2O and AgO) have attracted increasing attention as potential solar cell materials for photovoltaic devices due to their ideal bandgap and non-toxicity. In order to eliminate the complicated synthesis and harsh reaction conditions (e.g. high temperature, high vacuum, high energy input, electron beam instrumentation) required by most synthetic strategies, we developed a very facile dry chemical approach to directly prepare AgxO species on the ITO substrate by taking advantage of a UV-O3 surrounding in a controlled way. We systematically investigated the effects of relative humidity, reaction temperature, and the silver deposition technique on the formation of silver oxide (AgO or Ag2O) thin films. A possible synthetic mechanism for the formation of AgO and Ag2O is proposed. More importantly, we have designed and successfully fabricated novel inorganic hybrid Ag2O/Bi2O3 heterojunction thin films for the first time which exhibit significantly improved photocurrent compared with pure Bi2O3 films.