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Background: COVID-19 sequelae are long-term symptoms of COVID-19. Cardiovascular disease is not only a risk factor for the occurrence of COVID-19 sequelae but also a potential result directly or indirectly caused by COVID-19 infection. Objectives: The aim of this study is to investigate the cardiovascular system-related symptoms of outpatients and inpatients of the Cardiovascular Department of the Affiliated Hospital of Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine after recovery from novel coronavirus infection, analyze the influencing factors, and symptom characteristics of related symptoms, and thereby provide a basis for further formulating a reasonable diagnosis and treatment plan. Materials and methods: From January 15, 2023 to February 15, 2023, 452 recovered patients with novel coronavirus infection who were admitted to the Cardiovascular Department of the Affiliated Hospital of Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine due to symptoms of the cardiovascular system (complaints of chest pain and palpitations) were involved in this study. A unified questionnaire was used to record the general information, past medical history, characteristics of chest pain or palpitations, and other COVID-19-related sequelae of the selected patients. All data were statistically analyzed by SPSS 26.0 statistical software. Results: A total of 226 patients with cardiovascular symptoms and 226 patients without cardiovascular symptoms were included in this study. After univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis, women (OR 2.081, 95% CI = 1.358-3.189) and young people (OR 2.557, 95% CI = 1.44-4.54) had a higher risk of cardiovascular symptoms; prehypertension (OR 1.905, 95% CI = 1.091-3.329) and hypertension (OR 2.287, 95% CI = 1.433-3.649) increased the risk of cardiovascular symptoms; patients with history of previous cardiovascular disease (OR 1.862, 95% CI = 1.16-2.988) and history of diabetes (OR 2.138, 95% CI = 1.058-4.319) had a higher risk of developing cardiovascular symptoms. The main symptoms related to COVID-19 sequelae reported by all 452 patients were fatigue (76.8%), shortness of breath (54.2%), dry mouth and bitter mouth (46.0%), gastrointestinal symptoms (42.7%), sleep disturbances (37.4%), sweating (31.9%), chills (29%), dizziness (25.7%), confusion of brain fog (25.2%), and tinnitus (14.6%). Compared with patients without cardiovascular symptoms, patients with cardiovascular symptoms were more likely to have shortness of breath (OR 3.521, 95% CI = 2.226-5.472), gastrointestinal symptoms (OR 2.039, 95% CI = 1.226-3.393), and dry mouth and bitter mouth (OR 1.918, 95% CI = 1.229-2.992). The differences were statistically significant (P < 0.05). Conclusion: In this new coronavirus infection, women, young people, the elderly, people with prehypertension, hypertension, and patients with a history of cardiovascular disease and diabetes have a higher risk of developing cardiovascular symptoms, and patients with cardiovascular symptoms are more likely to develop other COVID-19 sequelae.
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Background: In recent years, it has been demonstrated that ferroptosis can be involved in a variety of kidney injury processes, but the role played by ferroptosis in hypertensive kidney injury is still unclear. The aim was to explore the mechanism of ferroptosis playing a role in hypertensive kidney disease and related signalling pathways. Methods: GSE37455 microarray data was downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database and preprocessed. Batch correction and differential analysis were performed on the normal population and the hypertensive nephropathy samples using the "sva" and "limma" packages in R software. Ferroptosis-related genes were obtained from the FerrDb database and normalized and processed using UniProt. Ferroptosis-related differentially expressed genes were obtained using Venny 2.1. and imported into the Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes (STRING) to obtain protein-protein interactions (PPIs). The data were imported into Cytoscape 3.7.2 for processing to identify the core differential genes of ferroptosis based on nodes. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was performed on the core differential genes of ferroptosis to infer the pathway of ferroptosis action in hypertensive nephropathy. Results: The R software processing yielded 37 differential genes, including 13 upregulated genes and 24 downregulated genes. 202 ferroptosis-related genes were obtained by screening, and 3 ferroptosis-related differentially expressed genes were obtained after taking the intersection. The ferroptosis-related core differentially expressed gene albumin (ALB) was obtained by PPI network analysis and Cytoscape processing. GSEA analysis revealed that ferroptosis may act in hypertensive nephropathy through pathways such as drug metabolism-cytochrome P450, branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) metabolism, retinol metabolism, and biological processes (BPs) such as organic and amino acid metabolism and humoral immunity. Conclusions: Ferroptosis may act in the development of hypertensive nephropathy through pathways such as BCAA metabolism and retinol metabolism and BPs such as organic and amino acid metabolism and humoral immunity.
RESUMO
Recently, GaTe and C2N monolayers have been successfully synthesized and show fascinating electronic and optical properties. Such hybrid of GaTe with C2N may induce new novel physical properties. In this work, we perform ab initio simulations on the structural, electronic, and optical properties of the GaTe/C2N van der Waals (vdW) heterostructure. Our calculations show that the GaTe/C2N vdW heterostructure is an indirect-gap semiconductor with type-II band alignment, facilitating an effective separation of photogenerated carriers. Intriguingly, it also presents enhanced visible-UV light absorption compared to its components and can be tailored to be a good photocatalyst for water splitting at certain pH by applying vertical strains. Further, we explore specifically the adsorption and decomposition of water molecules on the surface of C2N layer in the heterostructure and the subsequent formation of hydrogen, which reveals the mechanism of photocatalytic hydrogen production on the 2D GaTe/C2N heterostructure. Moreover, it is found that in-plane biaxial strains can induce indirect-direct-indirect, semiconductor-metal, and type II to type I or type III transitions. These interesting results make the GaTe/C2N vdW heterostructure a promising candidate for applications in next generation of multifunctional optoelectronic devices.