Characterization of high-affinity antibodies against the surface Gc protein of / severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus.

Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV) or is an emerging pathogen responsible for SFTS. It is considered a novel threat to human health, given the high associated fatality. SFTSV is a segmented negative-strand RNA virus containing three single-stranded RNAs, with the M segment encoding the glycoproteins Gn and Gc.

Surface anatomy and levator scapulae muscle injection: A cadaveric investigation.

Accurate detection of the levator scapulae muscle is critical for effective diagnostic and therapeutic interventions. The commonly used surface anatomy approach has not been validated and is less accurate than ultrasound-guided techniques. Therefore, we determined the needle insertion point for the levator scapulae using a new technique based on the anatomy of the scapula.

Optimal needle electromyography approach to the serratus anterior muscle.

Introduction/aims: There are two conventional needle electromyography (EMG) approaches to the serratus anterior (SA), both of which can result in erroneous insertion into adjacent structures such as the latissimus dorsi (LD), teres major, or external oblique abdominis muscles and pose a risk of long thoracic nerve (LTN) injury. Therefore, we identified a novel needle insertion point for the SA in cadavers that avoids other muscles and LTN injury.

Methods: This study included 17 cadavers: 12 to devise the new method and 5 to verify its accuracy.

Heterologous vaccination utilizing viral vector and protein platforms confers complete protection against SFTSV.

Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus was first discovered in 2009 as the causative agent of severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome. Despite its potential threat to public health, no prophylactic vaccine is yet available. This study developed a heterologous prime-boost strategy comprising priming with recombinant replication-deficient human adenovirus type 5 (rAd5) expressing the surface glycoprotein, Gn, and boosting with Gn protein.

Community knowledge, attitude and practices regarding zoonotic viral haemorrhagic fevers in five geo-ecological zones in Tanzania.

Background: Viral haemorrhagic fevers (VHF) cause significant economic and public health impact in Sub-Saharan Africa. Community knowledge, awareness and practices regarding such outbreaks play a pivotal role in their management and prevention. This study was carried out to assess community knowledge, attitude and practices regarding VHF in five geo-ecological zones in Tanzania.

Investigating the Impact of Voice Impairment on Quality of Life in Stroke Patients: The Voice Handicap Index (VHI) Questionnaire Study.

The Voice Handicap Index (VHI) is a patient-centered evaluation tool specifically designed for assessing voice-related quality of life. Although the VHI has been extensively used in patients with voice disorders, its applicability in stroke patients has not been fully established. This prospective cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the feasibility of using the VHI questionnaire in identifying stroke patients with voice problems.

Kinetics of vaccine-induced neutralizing antibody titers and estimated protective immunity against wild-type SARS-CoV-2 and the Delta variant: A prospective nationwide cohort study comparing three COVID-19 vaccination protocols in South Korea.

Introduction: Despite vaccine development, the COVID-19 pandemic is ongoing due to immunity-escaping variants of concern (VOCs). Estimations of vaccine-induced protective immunity against VOCs are essential for setting proper COVID-19 vaccination policy.

Methods: We performed plaque-reduction neutralizing tests (PRNTs) using sera from healthcare workers (HCWs) collected from baseline to six months after COVID-19 vaccination and from convalescent COVID-19 patients.

Viral haemorrhagic fevers and malaria co-infections among febrile patients seeking health care in Tanzania.

Background: In recent years there have been reports of viral haemorrhagic fever (VHF) epidemics in sub-Saharan Africa where malaria is endemic. VHF and malaria have overlapping clinical presentations making differential diagnosis a challenge. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of selected zoonotic VHFs and malaria co-infections among febrile patients seeking health care in Tanzania.

Development and Characterization of a Reverse Genetics System for a Human-Derived Severe Fever With Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Virus Isolate From South Korea.

Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV) is an emerging, tick-borne that causes lethal disease in humans. As there are no licensed vaccines and therapeutics for SFTSV, there is an urgent need to develop countermeasures against it. In this respect, a reverse genetics (RG) system is a powerful tool to help achieve this goal.

Comparison of SARS-CoV-2 variant lethality in human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 transgenic mice.

This study compared the lethality of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 variants belonging to the S, V, L, G, GH, and GR clades using K18-human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 heterozygous mice. To estimate the 50% lethal dose (LD) of each variant, increasing viral loads (10-10 plaque-forming units [PFU]) were administered intranasally. Mouse weight and survival were monitored for 14 days.

Seroprevalence and associated risk factors of selected zoonotic viral hemorrhagic fevers in Tanzania.

Objective: To determine the seroprevalence of selected zoonotic viral hemorrhagic fevers (VHFs) and their associated risk factors in Tanzania.

Methods: Blood samples were collected from consenting outpatients and community members in eight districts selected from five ecological zones of Tanzania. Serum was harvested and tested for the presence of immunoglobulin G (IgG) and M (IgM) antibodies against Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF), Ebola virus disease (EVD), Marburg virus disease (MVD), Rift Valley fever (RVF), and yellow fever (YF).

Neutralizing Antibodies to Severe Fever With Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Virus Among Survivors, Non-Survivors and Healthy Residents in South Korea.

Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS), a newly emerging tick-borne viral disease, has been detected in Asia since 2009, and person-to-person transmission is possible. SFTS is characterized by atypical signs, including mild to severe febrile illness similar to that associated with hemorrhagic fever, with 16.2 to 30% mortality.

A point-of-care diagnostic system to influenza viruses using chip-based ultra-fast PCR.

In order to diagnose the infectious disease from clinical samples, the various protocols such as culturing microorganism, rapid diagnostic test using chromatographic method, ELISA, conventional PCR are developed. Since a novel strain of avian influenza can be cross-infected human as well as birds and livestock due to genetic reassortment, some strains of influenza such as H7N9 and H5N1 have emerged as a severe virus which can be threaten the health of poultry as well as human. Therefore, we explored the development of simultaneously and rapid diagnostic tool for seasonal influenza (A/H1N1, A/H3N2, B) and highly pathogenic avian influenza (A/H5N1, A/H7N9).

Progranulin overexpression in sensory neurons attenuates neuropathic pain in mice: Role of autophagy.

Peripheral or central nerve injury is a frequent cause of chronic pain and the mechanisms are not fully understood. Using newly generated transgenic mice we show that progranulin overexpression in sensory neurons attenuates neuropathic pain after sciatic nerve injury and accelerates nerve healing. A yeast-2-hybrid screen revealed putative interactions of progranulin with autophagy-related proteins, ATG12 and ATG4b.

Mental health services and R&D in South Korea.

World Health Organization has asserted that mental illness is the greatest overriding burden of disease in the majority of developed countries, and that the socioeconomic burden of mental disease will exceed that of cancer and cardiovascular disorders in the future. The life-time prevalence rate for mental disorders in Korea is reported at 27.6 %, which means three out of 10 adults experience mental disorders more than once throughout their lifetime.

How can a change in the operating system of the mental health review board promote the discharge of long-term hospitalized psychiatric patients? A case study of Seoul city.

Background: One of the most typical and chronic problem in Korean mental health system is the prolonged length of hospital stay. In contrast to there are many components which leads to long length of stay of psychiatric patients in Korean situation such as low and fixed medical fee for psychiatric inpatient treatment, shortage of community resources, lack of care-givers' awareness and so on, there are just few mechanisms to handle this issue such as Mental Health Review Board (MHRB) which is based on Mental Health Act since 1995. However, the discharge order rate was very low and there community care system after discharge order is still very weak.

Hypoxia-inducible factor 1 regulates heat and cold pain sensitivity and persistence.

Aims: The present study assessed the functions of the transcription factor hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) in sensory neurons in models of acute, inflammatory, ischemic, and neuropathic pain. The alpha subunit, HIF1α, was specifically deleted in neurons of the dorsal root ganglia by mating HIF1α(fl/fl) mice with SNScre mice.

Results: SNS-HIF1α(-/-) mice were more sensitive to noxious heat and cold pain stimulation than were HIF1α(fl/fl) control mice.

Anandamide deficiency and heightened neuropathic pain in aged mice.

Damaging of peripheral nerves may result in chronic neuropathic pain for which the likelihood is increased in the elderly. We assessed in mice if age-dependent alterations of endocannabinoids contributed to the heightened vulnerability to neuropathic pain at old age. We assessed nociception, endocannabinoids and the therapeutic efficacy of R-flurbiprofen in young and aged mice in the spared nerve injury model of neuropathic pain.

Inhibition of GTP cyclohydrolase attenuates tumor growth by reducing angiogenesis and M2-like polarization of tumor associated macrophages.

GTP cyclohydrolase (GCH1) is the key-enzyme to produce the essential enzyme cofactor, tetrahydrobiopterin. The byproduct, neopterin is increased in advanced human cancer and used as cancer-biomarker, suggesting that pathologically increased GCH1 activity may promote tumor growth. We found that inhibition or silencing of GCH1 reduced tumor cell proliferation and survival and the tube formation of human umbilical vein endothelial cells, which upon hypoxia increased GCH1 and endothelial NOS expression, the latter prevented by inhibition of GCH1.

Inhibitor kappa B kinase beta dependent cytokine upregulation in nociceptive neurons contributes to nociceptive hypersensitivity after sciatic nerve injury.

Unlabelled: Inhibitor kappa B kinase (IKK)-mediated nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB) activation is a major pathway for transcriptional control of various pro-inflammatory factors. We here assessed whether activation of this pathway specifically in primary nociceptive neurons of the dorsal root ganglia (DRG) contributes to the development of nociceptive hypersensitivity. Mice carrying a cre-loxP-mediated deletion of inhibitor kappa B kinase beta (IKKβ) in DRG neurons were protected from nerve injury-evoked allodynia and hyperalgesia.

CNGA3: a target of spinal nitric oxide/cGMP signaling and modulator of inflammatory pain hypersensitivity.

A large body of evidence indicates that nitric oxide (NO) and cGMP contribute to central sensitization of pain pathways during inflammatory pain. Here, we investigated the distribution of cyclic nucleotide-gated (CNG) channels in the spinal cord, and identified the CNG channel subunit CNGA3 as a putative cGMP target in nociceptive processing. In situ hybridization revealed that CNGA3 is localized to inhibitory neurons of the dorsal horn of the spinal cord, whereas its distribution in dorsal root ganglia is restricted to non-neuronal cells.

Progranulin contributes to endogenous mechanisms of pain defense after nerve injury in mice.

Progranulin haploinsufficiency is associated with frontotemporal dementia in humans. Deficiency of progranulin led to exaggerated inflammation and premature aging in mice. The role of progranulin in adaptations to nerve injury and neuropathic pain are still unknown.

Nerve injury evoked loss of latexin expression in spinal cord neurons contributes to the development of neuropathic pain.

Nerve injury leads to sensitization mechanisms in the peripheral and central nervous system which involve transcriptional and post-transcriptional modifications in sensory nerves. To assess protein regulations in the spinal cord after injury of the sciatic nerve in the Spared Nerve Injury model (SNI) we performed a proteomic analysis using 2D-difference gel electrophoresis (DIGE) technology. Among approximately 2300 protein spots separated on each gel we detected 55 significantly regulated proteins after SNI whereof 41 were successfully identified by MALDI-TOF MS.

Silencing of the mineralocorticoid receptor by ribonucleic acid interference in transgenic rats disrupts endocrine homeostasis.

Currently, gene disruption by homologous recombination in embryonic stem cells is only feasible in mice. To circumvent this problem, we silenced mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) expression by RNA interference in knockdown rats generated through lentiviral transgenesis. Analysis of the F1 progeny at 3 wk of age revealed strongly decreased MR levels.