'The coronavirus is a formidable foe': children's multimodal articulations of SARS-CoV-2 virus and COVID-19 pandemic experiences in China.

Objective: This study explored children's post-pandemic articulations regarding the coronavirus along with their lived experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design: A qualitative survey featuring drawings, comments, questions and follow-up interviews was employed to gather data from 108 infected children aged 13 to 14 from two middle schools in China. This multimodal approach allowed for a rich capture of the children's articulations of their pandemic experiences.

Rational design of HJH antimicrobial peptides to improve antimicrobial activity.

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have attracted considerable interest in the past decade due to their advantages for tackling antibiotic resistance. They exhibit potential antimicrobial activity through unique cell membrane destruction mechanism based on their net charge, hydrophobic properties, and α-helix. In this work, a series of HJH peptides was rationally designed and synthesized.

Sortase A-mediated cyclization of novel polycyclic RGD peptides for αβ integrin targeting.

Cyclic arginine-glycine-aspartic (RGD) peptides that specifically bind to integrin αβ have been developed for drug delivery, tracers, and imaging for tumor diagnosis and treatment. Herein, a series of polycyclic RGD peptides containing dual, tri, and tetra rings were designed and synthesized through sortase A-mediated ligation. An in vitro test on cell adhesion inhibition indicated that the RGD peptide containing tricylic structure exhibited outstanding potency and selectivity for αβ integrin.

The mechanism of improved gellan gum production by two-stage culture of .

A two-stage culture (with controlled sucrose concentrations and temperatures) of for gellan gum production has been previously investigated. Herein, the mechanism of a two-stage culture favoring gellan gum overproduction was revealed by analysing the cell-membrane permeability and the proteomics for gellan gum biosynthesis. The two-stage culture, resulted in 79.

Design and synthesis of novel dual-cyclic RGD peptides for αβ integrin targeting.

The specific binding of RGD cyclic peptide with integrin αβ attracts great research interest for tumor-targeting drug delivery. Herein, we designed and synthesized a series of dual-ring RGD-peptide derivatives as a drug carrier for αβ targeting. Three novel peptides showed excellent cell adhesion inhibition effect, in which, P3 exhibited 7-fold enhancement in IC compared with cyclo(RGDfK).

Diversity of endophytic fungi of Paeonia lactiflora Pallas and screening for fungal paeoniflorin producers.

Endophytic fungi from Paeonia lactiflora Pallas, which is mainly distributed in China, were characterized and screened to identify those capable of producing paeoniflorin. A total of 101 isolates obtained from the roots, stems and leaves of P. lactiflora were grouped into 16 fungal taxa based on morphological traits and internal transcribed spacers sequences, indicating that endophytic fungi of P.

Enzymatic On-Resin Peptide Cleavage and in Situ Cyclization One-Pot Strategy for the Synthesis of Cyclopeptide and Cyclotide.

A one-pot strategy combining sortase A mediated on-resin peptide cleavage and in situ cyclization was developed for the synthesis of cyclic peptides. This strategy was applied to synthesize head-to-tail cyclic antibacterial bovine lactoferricin peptide LFcinB in a yield of 67%. The one-pot strategy was compatible with an oxidative folding reaction, and complex cyclotides containing one or two disulfide bonds, such as sunflower trypsin inhibitors-1 and α-conotoxin MII, were successfully synthesized in one pot in a yield of 77% and 61%, respectively.

Improving bioconversion of eugenol to coniferyl alcohol by in situ eliminating harmful HO.

Coniferyl alcohol is a valuable chemical. However, the current approaches to obtain coniferyl alcohol are either unefficient or expensive. Penicillium simplicissimum vanillyl alcohol oxidase (PsVAO) can be used to produce coniferyl alcohol.

One-step purification and immobilization of extracellularly expressed sortase A by magnetic particles to develop a robust and recyclable biocatalyst.

Sortase A (SrtA) is a transpeptidase widely used to site-specifically modify peptides and proteins and shows promise for industrial applications. In this study, a novel strategy was developed for constructing immobilized-SrtA as a robust and recyclable enzyme via direct immobilization of extracellularly expressed SrtA in the fermentation supernatant using magnetic particles. Efficient extracellular SrtA expression was achieved in Escherichia coli through molecular engineering, including manipulation of the protein transport pathway, codon optimization, and co-expression of molecular chaperones to promote expressed SrtA secretion into the medium at high levels.

Engineering of an H O auto-scavenging in vivo cascade for pinoresinol production.

Pinoresinol is a natural lignan with a high market value that has potential pharmacological and food supplement applications. Pinoresinol is currently isolated from plants, which suffers from low efficiency and yield. To produce pinoresinol from inexpensive and industrially available eugenol, an in vivo enzymatic cascade composed of vanillyl alcohol oxidase and peroxidase was designed, which scavenges H O automatically and eliminates protein purification and cofactor addition.

New potent and selective αvβ integrin ligands: Macrocyclic peptides containing RGD motif synthesized by sortase A-mediated ligation.

Three 14-mer macrocyclic peptides 1-3 containing mono-, di- and tri-RGD structure motif were designed and synthesized by sortase A-mediated ligation in good yields. The results of in intro cell-based biological assays indicated that linear peptide 5 and macrocyclic peptide 1, containing di-RGD and mono-RGD motif respectively, showed remarkable potency and selectivity to αβ integrin.

Nalp3 inflammasome is activated and required for vascular smooth muscle cell calcification.

Background: The calcification of blood vessels correlates with increased morbidity and mortality in patients with atherosclerosis, diabetes, and end-stage kidney disease. Increased inflammasome activation has been shown to play an important role in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. However, the contribution of inflammasome activation on the development of vascular calcification has not been investigated.

The hepatitis B virus X protein disrupts innate immunity by downregulating mitochondrial antiviral signaling protein.

Previous studies have shown that both hepatitis A virus and hepatitis C virus inhibit innate immunity by cleaving the mitochondrial antiviral signaling (MAVS) protein, an essential component of the virus-activated signaling pathway that activates NF-kappaB and IFN regulatory factor-3 to induce the production of type I IFN. For human hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis B s-Ag, hepatitis B e-Ag, or HBV virions have been shown to suppress TLR-induced antiviral activity with reduced IFN-beta production and subsequent induction of IFN-stimulated genes. However, HBV-mediated suppression of the RIG-I-MDA5 pathway is unknown.

c-Abl tyrosine kinase interacts with MAVS and regulates innate immune response.

The tyrosine kinase, c-Abl, plays important roles in many aspects of cellular function. Previous reports showed that c-Abl is involved in NF-kappaB signaling. However, the functions of c-Abl in innate immunity are still unknown.