Surveillance of Emerging Rodent-Borne Pathogens in Wastewater in Taiwan: A One Health Approach.

Leptospirosis and hantavirus syndrome are two major rodent-borne diseases in Taiwan. (RHEV), a virus closely related to hepatitis E virus (HEV, ), is emerging and has been reported to cause hepatitis in humans. We employed wastewater-based epidemiology to actively monitor rodent-borne pathogens, and the correlations with human cases were evaluated.

Recurrent Occupational Hantavirus Infections Linked to Feeder Rodent Breeding Farm, Taiwan, 2022.

We investigated 2 acute cases and 1 previous case of Seoul hantavirus infection in workers in a feeder rodent breeding farm in Taiwan. Prevalence of hantavirus IgG among the tested feeder rats was 37.5%.

Protein-Labeling Fluorescent Probe Reveals Ectodomain Shedding of Transmembrane Carbonic Anhydrases.

Ectodomain shedding is a form of limited proteolysis in which a protease cleaves a transmembrane protein, releasing the extracellular domain from the cell surface. Cells use this process to regulate a wide variety of biological events. Typically, immunological detection methods are employed for the analysis of ectodomains secreted into the cultured media.

Small-Molecule Modulated Affinity-Tunable Semisynthetic Protein Switches.

Engineered protein switches have been widely applied in cell-based protein sensors and point-of-care diagnosis for the rapid and simple analysis of a wide variety of proteins, metabolites, nucleic acids, and enzymatic activities. Currently, these protein switches are based on two main types of switching mechanisms to transduce the target binding event to a quantitative signal, through a change in the optical properties of fluorescent molecules and the activation of enzymatic activities. In this paper, we introduce a new affinity-tunable protein switch strategy in which the binding of a small-molecule target with the protein activates the streptavidin-biotin interaction to generate a readout signal.

Cross-Sectional, Short-, Medium-, and Long-Term Effects of Dietary Pattern on Frailty in Taiwan.

This study examined the association between dietary patterns and the development of frailty during 4-, 8-, 12-year follow-up periods in the population-based Taiwan Study. We used the data of an elderly population aged 53 years and over ( = 3486) from four waves of the Taiwan Longitudinal Study on Aging. Frailty was identified by using the modified Fried criteria and the values were summed to derive a frailty score.