Incidental Hyperferritinemia in Very Young Infants with Mild Symptoms of COVID-19 Disease.

BACKGROUND: The number of children infected with novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has increased during the outbreak of the Omicron strain. Hyperferritinemia has been reported in severe cases of COVID-19, and in children or neonates with multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS). Hyperferritinemia is considered to be one of the signs of MIS, but thus far, there have been few summarized reports on it. We retrospectively analyzed four infants less than 3 months of age with SARS-CoV-2 infections treated in our institution during the outbreak of the Omicron strain. RESULTS: most patients were in good condition, but hyperferritinemia was observed in all of four cases. CONCLUSIONS: Hyperferritinemia can be observed in infantile COVID-19 patients even with mild symptoms. It is necessary to carefully monitor their clinical course and monitor the patients.

Atomic force microscopy studies on heat-induced gelation of curdlan.

Heat-induced gelation of a cold-water insoluble polysaccharide, Curdlan, was investigated using atomic force microscopy (AFM). Curdlan dissolved into NaOH aqueous solutions exhibited a spectral transition around 0.2 mol/L NaOH, which is an indicative of conformational transitions from a single helix at a lower alkali concentration to a disordered chain at a higher concentration. Nevertheless, AFM images of Curdlan solubilized in 0.01 mol/L NaOH revealed the presence of heterogeneous supramolecular assemblies of Curdlan: the majority of the molecules were in the form of microfibrils, the lengths of which were on the order of micrometers and the cross-sectional heights of which were approximately 2-3 nm, whereas single molecular chains, partially dissociated from these microfibrils, were also observed. Heating such a sol resulted in the formation of densely cross-linked microgel networks. Heat-induced gelation of Curdlan appears to be initiated by partial dissociation of single chains from supramolecular microfibrils and followed by cross-linking of microfibrils via hydrophobic interactions among these partially dissociated chains.