Discovery of a novel coronavirus associated with the recent pneumonia outbreak in humans and its potential bat origin

Since the SARS outbreak 18 years ago, a large number of severe acute respiratory syndrome related coronaviruses (SARSr-CoV) have been discovered in their natural reservoir host, bats1-4. Previous studies indicated that some of those bat SARSr-CoVs have the potential to infect humans5-7. Here we report the identification and characterization of a novel coronavirus (nCoV-2019) which caused an epidemic of acute respiratory syndrome in humans, in Wuhan, China. The epidemic, started from December 12th, 2019, has caused 198 laboratory confirmed infections with three fatal cases by January 20th, 2020. Full-length genome sequences were obtained from five patients at the early stage of the outbreak. They are almost identical to each other and share 79.5% sequence identify to SARS-CoV. Furthermore, it was found that nCoV-2019 is 96% identical at the whole genome level to a bat coronavirus. The pairwise protein sequence analysis of seven conserved non-structural proteins show that this virus belongs to the species of SARSr-CoV. The nCoV-2019 virus was then isolated from the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid of a critically ill patient, which can be neutralized by sera from several patients. Importantly, we have confirmed that this novel CoV uses the same cell entry receptor, ACE2, as SARS-CoV.

Repellant and insecticidal activities of shyobunone and isoshyobunone derived from the essential oil of Acorus calamus rhizomes.

CONTEXT: It was found that the essential oil of Acorus calamus rhizomes showed insecticidal activity. AIM: The aim of this study was to determine the chemical composition of the essential oil from A. calamus rhizomes, evaluate insecticidal and repellant activity against Lasioderma serricorne (LS) and Tribolium castaneum (TC), and to isolate any insecticidal constituents from the essential oil. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Essential oil from A. calamus was obtained by hydrodistillation and analyzed by gas chromatography (GC) flame ionization detector and GC-mass spectrometry. The insecticidal and repellant activity of the essential oil and isolated compounds was tested using a variety of methods. RESULTS: The main components of the essential oil were identified to be isoshyobunone (15.56%), ß-asarone (10.03%), bicyclo[6.1.0]non-1-ene (9.67%), shyobunone (9.60%) and methylisoeugenol (6.69%). Among them, the two active constituents were isolated and identified as shyobunone and isoshyobunone. The essential oil showed contact toxicity against LS and TC with LD50 values of 14.40 and 32.55 µg/adult, respectively. The isolated compounds, shyobunone and isoshyobunone also exhibited strong contact toxicity against LS adults with LD50 values of 20.24 and 24.19 µg/adult, respectively, while the LD50 value of isoshyobunone was 61.90 µg/adult for TC adults. The essential oil, shyobunone and isoshyobunone were strongly repellent (98%, 90% and 94%, respectively, at 78.63 nL/cm(2), after 2 h treatment) against TC. CONCLUSION: The essential oil, shyobunone and isoshyobunone possessed insecticidal and repellant activity against LS and TC.

Insecticidal and repellant activities of polyacetylenes and lactones derived from Atractylodes lancea rhizomes.

During a screening program for new agrochemicals from Chinese medicinal herbs and local wild plants, the petroleum ether (PE) extract of Atractylodes lancea (Thunb.) rhizomes was found to possess repellent and contact activities against Tribolium castaneum adults. Bioactivity-directed chromatographic separation of PE extract on repeated silica-gel columns led to the isolation of two polyacetylenes, atractylodin and atractylodinol (1 and 2, resp.), and two lactones, atractylenolides II and III (3 and 4, resp.). The structures of the compounds were elucidated based on NMR spectra. The four isolated compounds were evaluated for their insecticidal and repellent activities against T. castaneum. Atractylodin exhibited strong contact activity against T. castaneum adults with a LD50 value of 1.83 µg/adult. Atractylodin and atractylenolide II also possessed strong repellenct activities against T. castaneum adults. After 4-h exposure, >90% repellency was achieved with atractylodin at a low concentration of 0.63 µg/cm(2) . The results indicated that atractylodin (1) and atractylenolide II (3) have a good potential as a source for natural repellents, and 1 has the potential to be developed as natural insecticide.

[Study on chemical constituents from Schisandra chinensis stem].

OBJECTIVE: To separate and identify the chemical constituents from the stem of Schisandra chinensis. METHODS: Various chromatographic techniques were used to separate and purify the chemical constituents from 95% ethanol extraction of the stem of Schisandra chinensis. Their structures were elucidated based on the physico-chemical properties and spectral data. RESULTS: Ten compounds were obtained and elucidated as (+)-deoxyschizandrin (1), γ-schizandrin (2), wuweizisu C (3), gomisin N (4), schizandrin (5), anwuweizic acid (6), (-)-dihydroguaiaretic acid (7), tetradecanoic acid (8), ß-sitosterol (9) and daucosterol (10). CONCLUSION: Compounds 6-8 are obtained from the stem of Schisandra chinensis for the first time.

Production and Characterization of Monoclonal Antibodies of Shrimp White Spot Syndrome Virus Envelope Protein VP28 / 中国病毒学

BALB/c mice were immunized with purified White spot syndrome virus (WSSV).Six monoclonal antibody cell lines were selected by ELISA with VP28 protein expressed in E.coll in vitro neutralization experiments showed that 4 of them could inhibit the virus infection in crayfish.Westernblot suggested that all these monoclonal antibodies were against the conformational structure of VP28.The monoclonal antibody 7B4 was labeled with colloidal gold particles and used to locate the VP28 on virus envelope by immunogold labeling.These monoclonal antibodies could be used to develop immunological diagnosis methods for WSSV infection.

Molecular Epidemiological Investigation of Infectious Hypodermal and Hematopoietic Necrosis Virus and Taura Syndrome Virus in Penaeus Vannamei Cultured in China / 中国病毒学

The Infectious hypodermal and hematopoietic necrosis virus (IHHNV) and Taura syndrome virus (TSV) are two important shrimp viruses in cultured shrimp in America. These two viruses were transmitted to China at the beginning of the 21st century. In this study, 214 shrimp samples of Penaeus vannamei were collected from seven different areas of China and tested by PCR for IHHNV and TSV infection. The results showed that there were a high prevalence of IHHNV (65.42%) and low prevalence of TSV (3.27%) in the tested samples. Several samples were found to be co-infected with these two viruses. A 3 kb fragment of 7 positive IHHNV samples and a structure protein region (ORF2) of three TSV positive samples were amplified and sequenced. The sequence comparison indicated that both IHHNV and TSV sequenced in China have a low genetic variations compared with the prototype IHHNV and TSV from Hawaii. Phylogenetic analysis showed that TSV isolates were clustered into two groups, Asia and America group, which was genetically correlated to geographic distribution.

Homology Comparison of White Spot Syndrome Baculovirus (WSSV) from Penaeid shrimp / 中国病毒学

Homology of three WSSV isolates, which were sampled from r epresentative maritime space of China: Tanghai isolate (Bo Bay of China), Ningbo isolate (East China Sea), Shenzhen isolate (South China Sea) was compared. Both of the genome RFLP patterns and the characteristic structural proteins SDS-PAG E electrophero grams showed that they were quite same. It suggested that they were the same ki nd of WSSV virus that caused explosive epidemic diseases of shrimps (EEDS) throu ghout southern and northern China. The same large PCR products achieved when usi ng the PCR primers from RV－PJ＝PRDV (P. japonicus, Japan) and WSBV＝PmNOBII I(P.monodon Taiwan, China) respectively to amplify the genome from P.chine nsis (Tanghai, China) with high fidelity Taq Polymerase. The sequence identiti es of WSSV from P. chinensis with those from RV－PJ＝PRDV (P.japonicus, Japan) and WSBV＝PmNOBIII (P.monodon Taiwan, China) are 97% and 100% respect ively, the results provided additional evidence that WSSV reported in different parts of the Asian and Pacific regions maybe quite the same or just different va riants of the same virus.