Identification of Complex Pneumonia during the Outbreak of COVID-19: Bacterial Pneumonia Combined with Acute Eosinophilic Pneumonia in Patients with Maintenance Hemodialysis.

It is of crucial importance to diagnose patients in a timely and clear manner during the outbreak of COVID-19. Different causes of pneumonia makes it difficult to differentiate COVID-19 from others. Hemodialysis patients are a special group of people in this outbreak.

Intestinal flora alterations in patients with early chronic kidney disease: a case-control study among the Han population in southwestern China.

Objective: In this case-control study, we retrospectively analyzed the intestinal flora compositions of patients with early-stage chronic kidney disease (CKD).

Methods: Forty-seven patients with early CKD who were treated at the Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital between March and October 2018 were enrolled, and 150 healthy volunteers were enrolled in the healthy control group. Fresh stool samples were collected.

Bio-templated silica composites for next-generation biomedical applications.

Silica-based materials have extensive biomedical applications owing to their unique physical, chemical, and biological properties. Recently, increasing studies have examined the mechanisms involved in biosilicification to develop novel, fine-tunable, eco-friendly materials and/or technologies. In this review, we focus on recent developments in bio-templated silica synthesis and relevant applications in drug delivery systems, tissue engineering, and biosensing.

Effects of combined oral sucrose and nonnutritive sucking (NNS) on procedural pain of NICU newborns, 2001 to 2016: A PRISMA-compliant systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Both oral sucrose (OS) and nonnutritive sucking (NNS) are effective nonpharmacological methods to alleviate procedures pain in neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) newborns when they were used alone, but the combined effect of OS+NNS remains controversial. So, we conducted this study to evaluate the efficiency of NNS combined with oral sucrose on pain relief in NICU newborns undergoing painful procedures.

Methods: We searched PubMed, Ovid (Medline), Embase (Medline), Cochrane Central Library, and other resources such as Google Scholar, bibliographies of included literatures for all available articles.

Plant Cell Wall-Penetrable, Redox-Responsive Silica Nanoprobe for the Imaging of Starvation-Induced Vesicle Trafficking.

Autophagy is a self-protection process against reactive oxygen species (ROS). The intracellular level of ROS increased when cells were cultured under nutrient starvation. Antioxidants such as glutathione and ascorbic acid play an important role in ROS removal.

[The dynamic changes of tuberculosis related cytokines during disease progression].

Objective: To study the dynamic changes of tuberculosis related cytokines among patients during the different courses of treatment, and to analyze their influences on the development and prognoses of tuberculosis.

Methods: All patients with active tuberculosis were enrolled from Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Foshan TB control institutes. There were a total of 68 cases, 36 males and 32 females, aged 19 to 50 years [ average (30±9) years].

Differential in situ sensing of extra- and intracellular glutathione by a novel redox-responsive silica matrix-Au nanoprobe.

We synthesized a biothiol-sensitive nanoprobe by assembling gold nanoparticles with a novel redox-responsive silica (ReSi) matrix using dithiobis (succinimidyl propionate) and (3-aminopropyl) trimethoxysilane. Thin layer disulfide-bonded networks of the ReSi could differentially respond to extra- and intracellular glutathione in cancer cells within 30 min; furthermore, targeted cellular uptake could be monitored in situ by fluorescence recovery. Sigmoidal dose-response pattern of the nanoprobes presented in this study were attributed to the buried disulfide-linked 3D nanostructure of the ReSi nanoshell, optimized at an appropriate thickness, enabling not only buffering of small redox disturbances in the extracellular milieu but also the satisfied sensitivity for rapid redox sensing.

In vitro investigation of methylene blue-bearing, electrostatically assembled aptamer-silica nanocomposites as potential photodynamic therapeutics.

Photodynamic therapy, that is, excitation of a photosensitizer with light to generate reactive oxygen species such as singlet oxygen, has emerged as a noninvasive technique for cancer theranostics. However, the clinical use of many photosensitizers is impeded by their hydrophobicity, the nonspecific damage they cause to normal tissues, and their susceptibility to environmental degradation. In this study, we developed a simple electrostatic adsorption strategy to fabricate aptamer-silica nanocomposites by sequentially functionalizing nanocomposites with the cell surface-associated mucin 1 aptamer for tumor targeting and a hydrophilic photosensitizer, methylene blue, for photodynamic therapy applications.

Biothiol-triggered, self-disassembled silica nanobeads for intracellular drug delivery.

Silica-based nanomaterials have demonstrated great potential in biomedical applications due to their chemical inertness. However, the degradability and endosomal trapping issues remain as rate-limiting barriers during their innovation. In this study, we provide a simple yet novel sol-gel approach to construct the redox-responsive silica nanobeads (ReSiNs), which could be rapidly disassembled upon redox gradient for intracellular drug delivery.

Non-metallic nanomaterials in cancer theranostics: a review of silica- and carbon-based drug delivery systems.

The rapid development in nanomaterials has brought great opportunities to cancer theranostics, which aims to combine diagnostics and therapy for cancer treatment and thereby improve the healthcare of patients. In this review we focus on the recent progress of several cancer theranostic strategies using mesoporous silica nanoparticles and carbon-based nanomaterials. Silicon and carbon are both group IV elements; they have been the most abundant and significant non-metallic substances in human life.