Publications by authors named "Kun Cai"

Background: Wild rodents and shrews serve as vital sentinel species for monitoring zoonotic viruses due to their close interaction with human environments and role as natural reservoirs for diverse viral pathogens. Although several studies have explored viral diversity and assessed pathogenic risks in wild rodents and shrews, the full extent of this diversity remains insufficiently understood.

Results: We conducted high-throughput sequencing on 1113 small mammals collected from 97 townships across seven cities in Hubei Province during 2021, supplemented by publicly available data from 2014 and 2016-2017.

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Aquatic biodiversity loss, particularly in rapidly developing nations, continues to raise concerns, prompting urgent debates on reconciling economic growth with environmental preservation through land use planning. While spatial variations in aquatic communities along land use gradients are well-documented, precise ecological thresholds for land use impacts on freshwater lakes remain elusive, hindering sustainable development efforts. This study investigated six representative freshwater lakes in China between 2019 and 2020, all significantly impacted by anthropogenic activities.

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Quorum sensing (QS) is a common method of communication among bacteria. While previous studies have discovered the mechanisms of QS in a variety of pathogenic bacteria, relatively little research has focused on probiotics, such as Bifidobacteria. Recent studies have detected QS signalling molecules in Bifidobacteria, but it remains unclear whether the probiotic properties of Bifidobacteria are mediated by QS.

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Introduction: This study compared the pattern of viral diarrhoea in Yichang City, China in 2022 and 2023, before and after the lifting of the COVID-19 restrictions.

Methods: Stool samples were collected from outpatients and inpatients with diarrhoea at three hospitals in Yichang from January to October 2022 and January to June 2023, before and after the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions, respectively. Samples were simultaneously tested for 13 types of enteric virus using a rapid multiplex assay that could simultaneously detect 13 types of five enteric viruses, including rotavirus (groups A, B, C and H), norovirus (I, II, IV, VII, VIII, and IX), adenovirus, sapovirus, and astrovirus.

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Pancreatic cancer (PC) is one of the most lethal malignant tumors that lacks effective treatment, and gemcitabine-based chemoresistance occurs frequently. Therefore, new therapeutic strategies for PC are urgently needed. Tripartite motif containing 59 (TRIM59) plays an important role in breast and lung cancer chemoresistance.

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Infections caused by coronaviruses are persistent threats to human health in recent decades, necessitating the development of innovative anti-coronaviral therapies. RNA interference (RNAi) is a conserved cell-intrinsic antiviral mechanism in diverse eukaryotic organisms, including mammals. To counteract, many viruses encode viral suppressors of RNAi (VSRs) to evade antiviral RNAi, implying that targeting VSRs could be a promising strategy to develop antiviral therapies.

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A precisely controllable heat treatment process is critical for nanofabrication. We developed a two-step method to fabricate a graphdiyne nanotube (GNT) through heat treatment in an argon environment. Initially, we placed a carbon nanotube (CNT) near a rectangular graphdiyne nanoribbon (GNR) to trigger the self-scrolling of the ribbon.

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Monitoring China's carbon dioxide (CO) concentration is essential for formulating effective carbon cycle policies to achieve carbon peaking and neutrality. Despite insufficient satellite observation coverage, this study utilizes high-resolution spatiotemporal data from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2), supplemented with various auxiliary datasets, to estimate full-coverage, monthly, column-averaged carbon dioxide (XCO) values across China from 2015 to 2022 at a spatial resolution of 0.05° via the deep forest model.

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Background: The gut microbiome has a significant impact on human wellness, contributing to the emergence and progression of a range of health issues including inflammatory and autoimmune conditions, metabolic disorders, cardiovascular problems, and psychiatric disorders. Notably, clinical observations have revealed that these illnesses can display differences in incidence and presentation between genders. The present study aimed to evaluate whether the composition of gut microbiota is associated with sex-specific differences and to elucidate the mechanism.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study examined drug resistance in HIV among newly diagnosed individuals in China from 2018 to 2023 to adapt treatment guidelines.
  • Out of over 22,000 individuals, 4.36% had at least one transmitted drug resistance (TDR) mutation, with the most common being linked to nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors.
  • The prevalence of TDR mutations notably increased from 4.05% to 5.39% over the study years, supporting the ongoing use of NNRTI-based treatment regimens for HIV.
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Article Synopsis
  • China adopted the WHO's "treat all" policy in 2016, aiming to improve HIV care through the 95-95-95 targets, which include diagnosing 95% of HIV positive individuals, getting 95% of those diagnosed on treatment, and achieving viral suppression in 95% of treated individuals.
  • Data from 2004 to 2023 showed significant advancements in these targets, correlating with a drop in new HIV infections, as evidenced by a dip in clustering frequency and a peak in cases documented in 2014.
  • The study concludes that while progress has been made, China needs to focus on increasing efforts in the first "95" target to further reduce HIV transmission rates and improve overall outcomes.
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Graphyne nanoscrolls (GNSs) have attracted significant research interest because of their wide-ranging applications. However, the production of GNSs via a self-scrolling approach is environment dependent. Here, molecular dynamics simulations are conducted to evaluate the self-scrolling behavior of an α-graphyne (α-GY) ribbon on a carbon nanotube (CNT) within various multiphysical environments, accounting for the interactions among temperature, electric field, and argon gas.

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Nafion membranes are widely used as proton exchange membranes, but their proton conductivity deteriorates in high-temperature environments due to the loss of water molecules. To address this challenge, we propose the utilization of porous aromatic frameworks (PAFs) as a potential solution. PAFs exhibit remarkable characteristics, such as a high specific surface area and porosity, and their porous channels can be post-synthesized.

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Previous studies have shown that the heterogeneity of tumor-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) in the tumor microenvironment may play a critical role in tumorigenesis; however, the biological function of CAFs in pancreatic cancer is still controversial. In this study, we found that CD105-positive (CD105) CAF-derived exosomes significantly promoted the proliferative and invasive metastatic abilities of pancreatic cancer cells. Furthermore, RNA-seq and qRT‒PCR experiments revealed circAMPK1 as a key molecule in exosomes from CD105 CAFs that mediates the malignant progression of pancreatic cancer.

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Background: Norovirus is the predominant pathogen causing foodborne illnesses and acute gastroenteritis (AGE) outbreaks worldwide, imposing a significant disease burden. This study aimed to investigate the epidemiological characteristics and genotypic diversity of norovirus outbreaks in Hongshan District, Wuhan City.

Methods: A total of 463 AGE cases from 39 AGE-related outbreaks in Hongshan District between January 1, 2021, and June 30, 2023, were included in the study.

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The genus Jeilongvirus comprises non-segmented negative-stranded RNA viruses that are classified within the Paramyxoviridae family by phylogeny. Jeilongviruses are found in various reservoirs, including rodents and bats. Rodents are typical viral reservoirs with diverse spectra and zoonotic potential.

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To enable an efficient bacterial cell surface display with effective protein expression and cell surface loading ability via autotransporter for potential vaccine development applications, the inner membrane protein translocation efficiency was investigated via a trial-and-error strategy by replacing the original unusual long signal peptide of E. coli Ag43 with 11 different signal peptides. The receptor-binding domain (RBD) of coronavirus was used as a neutral display substrate to optimize the expression conditions, and the results showed that signal peptides from PelB, OmpC, OmpF, and PhoA protein enhance the bacterial cell surface display efficiency of RBD.

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Hepatitis E, caused by the hepatitis E virus (HEV), is a global public health issue. Low similarity between the gene sequences of mouse and human HEV led to the belief that the risk of human infection was low. Recent reports of chronic and acute hepatitis E caused by murine HEV infection in humans in Hong Kong have raised global concerns.

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Paramyxoviruses are a group of single-stranded, negative-sense RNA viruses, some of which are responsible for acute human disease, including parainfluenza virus, measles virus, Nipah virus and Hendra virus. In recent years, a large number of novel paramyxoviruses, particularly members of the genus , have been discovered in wild mammals, suggesting that the diversity of paramyxoviruses may be underestimated. Here we used hemi-nested reverse transcription PCR to obtain 190 paramyxovirus sequences from 969 small mammals in Hubei Province, Central China.

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The biogenesis of outer membrane proteins is mediated by the β-barrel assembly machinery (BAM), which is a heteropentomeric complex composed of five proteins named BamA-E in Escherichia coli. Despite great progress in the BAM structural analysis, the molecular details of BAM-mediated processes as well as the exact function of each BAM component during OMP assembly are still not fully understood. To enable a distinguishment of the function of each BAM component, it is the aim of the present work to examine and identify the effective minimum form of the E.

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A new sol-gel method that employs cation exchange from an aqueous metal ion solution with H ions of granulated alginic acid was developed for synthesizing high-purity YO nanoparticles. In this study, the cation exchange kinetics of H~Y in aqueous solution were analyzed using on-line pH technology and off-line inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) analysis. Pseudo 2nd-order models were utilized to evaluate the parameters of the kinetics, suggesting that the concentration of H~Y involved in the cation exchange reaction was 1:1.

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Article Synopsis
  • Most vaccinees and those recovered from COVID-19 develop strong immunity against SARS-CoV-2, which helps prevent infections and reduce symptoms, yet the emergence of new variants like Omicron still raises global health concerns.
  • Surveillance of long-term cohorts shows a rise in breakthrough infections related to immune evasion by Omicron variants, with indications of reduced neutralization capacity over time.
  • The study suggests that sequential infections with specific variants can diminish immune imprinting from inactivated vaccines, underscoring the need for updated booster vaccinations to tackle reinfection risks from variants like Omicron JN.1.
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Background: In recent investigations, substantial strides have been made in the precise modulation of the gut microbiota to prevent and treat a myriad of diseases. Simultaneously, the pressing issue of widespread antibiotic resistance and multidrug resistance resulting from infections demands urgent attention. Several studies suggest that the antagonistic influence of the gut microbiota could serve as a novel avenue for impeding the colonization of pathogenic microorganisms or treating infections.

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Article Synopsis
  • Scrotal enlargement can stem from various causes like tumors, inflammation, and hernias; however, a rare case involved a tumor in the greater omentum extending into the scrotum through an inguinal hernia.
  • A 25-year-old male experienced scrotal enlargement and pain for three months, leading to a diagnosis of a benign fibroma of the greater omentum along with an indirect inguinal hernia after surgical exploration.
  • This case emphasizes the importance of thorough evaluations, including history, physical exams, and imaging, before deciding on surgical interventions.
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Lipid droplets (LDs) are dynamic lipid storage organelles that can be degraded by autophagy machinery to release neutral lipids, a process called lipophagy. However, specific receptors and regulation mechanisms for lipophagy remain largely unknown. Here, we identify that ATG14, the core unit of the PI3KC3-C1 complex, also targets LD and acts as an autophagic receptor that facilitates LD degradation.

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