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Molloy Reese posted an update 3 days, 7 hours ago
COVID-19 has brought the world to a standstill with a wave of destruction in country after country with tremendous loss of lives and livelihood in advanced to developing nations. Whole world is staring at the prospect of repeated lockdowns with another wave of COVID-19 predicted to hit the world in September of 2020. The second wave is assumed to be even more destructive with severe impact across much of the world. The only way to defeat this pandemic is to quickly develop a safe and effective vaccine against this raging menace and initiate a global vaccination drive. Our study is an attempt to deploy various computational methods to identify B-cell and T-cell epitopes from the spike surface glycoprotein of SARS-COV-2 which have the novel potential for vaccine development against COVID-19. For this we have taken 8 unique strains with one each from India, China, France, USA, Italy, Australia, Iran and Pakistan. The strain data was extracted from NCBI Database. By analyzing the immune parameters like surface accessibility, antigenicity, variability, conservancy, flexibility, hydrophilicity, allergenicity and toxicity of the conserved sequences of spike glycoprotein using various databases and bioinformatics tools, we identified two potential novel linear (SGTNGTKRFDN and ASVYAWNRK) and one structural B-cell epitope as well as two T-cell epitopes (RLFRKSNLK and IPTNFTISV) which can be used as epitope-based peptide vaccines. Docking simulation assay revealed that above T-cell epitopes have minimum free binding energy and showed strong hydrogen bond interaction which strengthened its potential as being a T-cell epitope for the epitope-based novel vaccine against SARS-CoV-2. This study allows us to claim that B-cell and T-cell epitopes mentioned above provide potential pathways for developing an exploratory vaccine against spike surface glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2 with high confidence for the identified strains. We will need to confirm our findings with biological assays.
There are a myriad of vaccine schedules for rabies pre- (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) that differ in the number and timedoses, number of visits, length of schedule, and route of administration. The objective of this study was to systematically review the evidence and investigate how thedifferences in schedules influence titres over time.
Four databaseswere searched from inception to January 2020 for rabies PrEP and PEP studies. Adose-response meta-analysis was utilised to pool geometric mean titres (GMT) over time. Subgroup analyses by route of administration, age group, and schedule were conducted.
80 studies met the inclusion criteria and contributed with 191 datasets and 12,413 participants. Both intradermal (ID) and intramuscular (IM) PrEP/PEP produce adequate GMTs. this website Significantly lower GMT levels were achieved in older (>50yrs) compared to younger (<50yrs) participants. Short 1-week schedules were as effective as longer schedules that can take between 3 and 12weeks to complete.
Several effective ID and IM schedules were identified, the selection of a schedule should take into account the patient’s needs, costs, availability to return for subsequent doses, and the time required to complete the schedule. Older individuals warrant special attention as they develop lower antibody response.
Several effective ID and IM schedules were identified, the selection of a schedule should take into account the patient’s needs, costs, availability to return for subsequent doses, and the time required to complete the schedule. Older individuals warrant special attention as they develop lower antibody response.We report a case of a vulvar verruciform xanthoma. Verruciform xanthoma is a rare benign lesion that occurs most commonly on the oral and genital mucosa. Under the microscope, this lesion displays acanthotic papillary epidermis with parakeratosis that extends deep into the epithelium, elongated rete ridges and xanthomatous cells in the papillary dermis. Vulvar lesions almost always occur in a local pathological context (lichen planus or sclerosus). It is important to be aware of this entity as it can mimic squamous carcinoma.
Using regression modeling analysis to investigate the breakpoints of the trends in survival-without-major-neonatal-morbidities (MNM) or -without-neurodevelopmental- impairment (NDI) by year and gestational age (GA) in preterm infants.
We enrolled 2237 preterm infants (GA<32 weeks) in Tainan, Taiwan. The trends in survival-without-MNM or -without-NDI by year (1995-2016) and GA (23-31 weeks), and the epochs and GA ranges with distinct changes were examined. Adjusted rate ratios (aRR) (95% confidence interval [CI]) were calculated using the rates in infants born at 23 weeks in 1995 as the reference.
For yearly trend, there were three epochs (1995-2000, 2001-2006, 2007-2016) with distinct changes in the rates of survival-without-MNM (aRR [95% CI] 1.07 [1.02-1.12], 1.04 [1.02-1.07], 1.02 [1.01-1.04]) and -without-NDI (1.03 [1.02-1.07], 1.02 [1.01-1.04], 1.01 [0.98-1.04]). For GA trend, the three GA ranges with different increases in the rates of survival-without-MNM were 23
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(1.60 [1.31-1.94]), 27
rom 1995 to 2016.
This study aims to explore the serum levels of IL-27 and the percentages of IL-27-producing cells in MG patients with positive acetylcholine receptor antibody (AChR-MG).
A total of 17 AChR-MG patients and 22 sex- and age- matched healthy controls (HCs) were recruited. Serum IL-27 levels were determined by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay. The percentages of IL-27
cells, IL-27-producing T (CD3
IL-27
) cells, and IL-27-producing B (CD19
IL-27
) cells were measured by flow cytometry.
Serum IL-27 levels in AChR-MG were significantly higher than those in HCs (13.44±0.89 vs 7.14±0.75pg/mL, P < 0.0001), and were decreased after intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) treatment (P=0.004). Moreover, the frequencies of IL-27
lymphocytes were significantly elevated in AChR-MG patients than those in HCs (P=0.011), and were decreased after IVIG treatment (P=0.014). Furthermore, the frequencies of IL-27-producing T cells (P=0.017) and IL-27-producing B cells (P=0.015) were significantly elevated in AChR-MG patients as compared to those in HCs.