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Fulltext Prevalence of Major Depressive Disorder in China

Low W, Azmi S, Li Y, Yee SL, Abdat A, Kalita P, et al.

Value Health, 2014 Nov;17(7):A767.
PMID: 27202816 DOI: 10.1016/j.jval.2014.08.292
Skin disease profile of Syrian refugees in Jordan: a field-mission assessment

Saikal SL, Ge L, Mir A, Pace J, Abdulla H, Leong KF, et al.

J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol, 2020 Feb;34(2):419-425.
PMID: 31498503 DOI: 10.1111/jdv.15909

BACKGROUND: Since the beginning of the Syrian war in 2011, the world has faced the most severe refugee crisis in history and 5.6 million Syrians have sought asylum in neighbouring countries or in Europe. According to recent estimates, more than 650 000 Syrian refugees are displaced in Jordan.
OBJECTIVES: This article aims to assess the demographic characteristics and skin disease profile of Syrian displaced people residing in Al Za'atari camp and in communities in Jordan. Furthermore, the authors discuss the barriers to healthcare provision experienced during field missions.
METHODS: This is a retrospective analysis of medical records collected during three medical missions in Jordan by an international dermatological team. Data on patient age, gender, country of origin and skin disease diagnoses were recorded both in Al Za'atari camp and Jordanian towns near the Syrian border.
RESULTS: A total of 1197 patients were assessed during the field missions, with 67.7% female and 37.1% under the age of 14 years. Dermatitis was the leading dermatological condition in both refugee camp and community healthcare clinics. Infectious diseases were the second most common; however, fungal presentations were more common in the community as opposed to viral in Al Za'atari.
CONCLUSIONS: High dermatitis presentations were likely secondary to the environment, living conditions and lack of access to emollients. Infectious diseases were postulated secondary to poor hygiene and sharing of overcrowded spaces. Barriers to health care included limited pharmacological formulary, difficulty in continuity of care and case referrals due to lack of specialized services. Better access to health care, improvement of living conditions and hygiene, and increased availability of medications including emollients and sunscreens are all interventions that should be carried out to reduce skin disease burden. Our findings should further urge the international community to uphold their commitments and uptake engagement in improving health care for Syrian displaced people.
The association of suicide risk with negative life events and social support according to gender in Asian patients with major depressive disorder

Park S, Hatim Sulaiman A, Srisurapanont M, Chang SM, Liu CY, Bautista D, et al.

Psychiatry Res, 2015 Aug 30;228(3):277-82.
PMID: 26160206 DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2015.06.032

We investigated the associations between negative life events, social support, depressive and hostile symptoms, and suicide risk according to gender in multinational Asian patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). A total of 547 outpatients with MDD (352 women and 195 men, mean age of 39.58±13.21 years) were recruited in China, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Taiwan. All patients were assessed with the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview, the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale, the Symptoms Checklist 90-Revised, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, and the List of Threatening Experiences. Negative life events, social support, depressive symptoms, and hostility were all significantly associated with suicidality in female MDD patients. However, only depressive symptoms and hostility were significantly associated with suicidality in male patients. Depression severity and hostility only partially mediated the association of negative life events and poor social support with suicidality in female patients. In contrast, hostility fully mediated the association of negative life events and poor social support with suicidality in male patients. Our results highlight the need of in-depth assessment of suicide risk for depressed female patients who report a number of negative life events and poor social supports, even if they do not show severe psychopathology.
High-Performance Diamond Phototransistor with Gate Controllable Gain and Speed

Ge L, Li B, Li G, Wang X, Cheong KY, Peng Y, et al.

J Phys Chem Lett, 2023 Jan 19;14(2):592-597.
PMID: 36633457 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.2c03637

This paper presents a fabricated solar-blind phototransistor based on hydrogen-terminated diamond. The phototransistor shows a large photocurrent and enhancement of responsivity over conventional two-terminal diamond-based photodetector. These enhancement effects are owing to the internal gain of the phototransistor. The fabricated phototransistor exhibits a high photoresponsivity (R) of 2.16 × 104 A/W and a detectivity (D*) of 9.63 × 1011 jones, with gate voltage (VG) and drain voltage of approximately -1.5 V and -5 V, respectively, under 213 nm light illumination. Even at ultralow operating voltage of -0.01 V, the device records satisfactory performance with R and D* of 146.7 A/W and 6.19 × 1010 jones, respectively. By adjusting the VG, photocurrent generation in the device can be continuously tuned from the fast photoconductive effect to the optical gating effect with high optical gain. When VG increases from 1.4 to 2.4 V, the decay time decreases from 1512.0 to 25.5 ms. Therefore, responsivity, dark current, Iphoto/Idark, and decay time of the device can be well tuned by VG.
Fulltext ACE2 and Furin Expressions in Oral Epithelial Cells Possibly Facilitate COVID-19 Infection via Respiratory and Fecal-Oral Routes

Zhong M, Lin B, Pathak JL, Gao H, Young AJ, Wang X, et al.

Front Med (Lausanne), 2020;7:580796.
PMID: 33363183 DOI: 10.3389/fmed.2020.580796

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that mainly transfers from human to human via respiratory and gastrointestinal routes. The S-glycoprotein in the virus is the key factor for the entry of SARS-CoV-2 into the cell, which contains two functional domains: S1 is an angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor binding domain, and S2 is necessary for fusion of the coronavirus and cell membranes. Moreover, it has been reported that ACE2 is likely to be the receptor for SARS-CoV-2. In addition, mRNA level expression of Furin enzyme and ACE2 receptor had been reported in airway epithelia, cardiac tissue, and enteric canals. However, the expression patterns of ACE2 and Furin in different cell types of oral tissues are still unclear. Methods: In order to investigate the potential infective channel of the new coronavirus via the oropharyngeal cavity, we analyze the expression of ACE2 and Furin in human oral mucosa using the public single-cell sequence datasets. Furthermore, immunohistochemistry was performed in mucosal tissue from different oral anatomical sites to confirm the expression of ACE2 and Furin at the protein level. Results: The bioinformatics results indicated the differential expression of ACE2 and Furin on epithelial cells from different oral anatomical sites. Immunohistochemistry results revealed that both the ACE2-positive and Furin-positive cells in the target tissues were mainly positioned in the epithelial layers, partly expressed in fibroblasts, further confirming the bioinformatics results. Conclusions: Based on these findings, we speculated that SARS-CoV-2 could invade oral mucosal cells through two possible routes: binding to the ACE2 receptor and fusion with cell membrane activated by Furin protease. Our results indicated that oral mucosa tissues are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 that could facilitate COVID-19 infection via respiratory and fecal-oral routes.
Fulltext Improvement of chicken plasma protein hydrolysate angiotensin I-converting enzyme inhibitory activity by optimizing plastein reaction

Gao D, Guo P, Cao X, Ge L, Ma H, Cheng H, et al.

Food Sci Nutr, 2020 Jun;8(6):2798-2808.
PMID: 32566197 DOI: 10.1002/fsn3.1572

Chicken plasma protein hydrolysate (CPPH) was prepared by trypsin with angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory activity of 53.5% ± 0.14% and the degree of hydrolysis (DH) of 16.22% ± 0.21% at 1 mg·ml-1; then, five proteases, including pepsin, trypsin, papain, alcalase, and neutrase, were employed to improve ACE inhibitory ability by catalyzing plastein reaction. The results indicated that trypsin-catalyzed plastein reaction showed the highest ACE inhibitory activity. The exogenous amino acids of leucine, histidine, tyrosine, valine, and cysteine were selected to modify the CPPH. The leucine-modified plastein reaction released the highest ACE inhibitory activity. The effects of four reaction parameters on plastein reaction were studied, and the optimal conditions with the purpose of obtaining the most powerful ACE inhibitory peptides from modified products were obtained by response surface methodology (RSM). The maximum ACE inhibition rate of the modified hydrolysate reached 82.07% ± 0.03% prepared at concentration of hydrolysates of 30%, reaction time of 4.9 hr, pH value of 8.0, temperature of 40°C, and E/S ratio of 5,681.62 U·g-1. The results indicated that trypsin-catalyzed plastein reaction increased ACE inhibitory activity of chicken plasma protein hydrolysates by 28.57%.
A living WHO guideline on drugs for covid-19

Agarwal A, Hunt B, Stegemann M, Rochwerg B, Lamontagne F, Siemieniuk RA, et al.

BMJ, 2020 Sep 04;370:m3379.
PMID: 32887691 DOI: 10.1136/bmj.m3379

UPDATES: This is the fourteenth version (thirteenth update) of the living guideline, replacing earlier versions (available as data supplements). New recommendations will be published as updates to this guideline.
CLINICAL QUESTION: What is the role of drugs in the treatment of patients with covid-19?
CONTEXT: The evidence base for therapeutics for covid-19 is evolving with numerous randomised controlled trials (RCTs) recently completed and underway. Emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants and subvariants are changing the role of therapeutics.
WHAT IS NEW?: The guideline development group (GDG) defined 1.5% as a new threshold for an important reduction in risk of hospitalisation in patients with non-severe covid-19. Combined with updated baseline risk estimates, this resulted in stratification into patients at low, moderate, and high risk for hospitalisation. New recommendations were added for moderate risk of hospitalisation for nirmatrelvir/ritonavir, and for moderate and low risk of hospitalisation for molnupiravir and remdesivir. New pharmacokinetic evidence was included for nirmatrelvir/ritonavir and molnupiravir, supporting existing recommendations for patients at high risk of hospitalisation. The recommendation for ivermectin in patients with non-severe illness was updated in light of additional trial evidence which reduced the high degree of uncertainty informing previous guidance. A new recommendation was made against the antiviral agent VV116 for patients with non-severe and with severe or critical illness outside of randomised clinical trials based on one RCT comparing the drug with nirmatrelvir/ritonavir. The structure of the guideline publication has also been changed; recommendations are now ordered by severity of covid-19.
ABOUT THIS GUIDELINE: This living guideline from the World Health Organization (WHO) incorporates new evidence to dynamically update recommendations for covid-19 therapeutics. The GDG typically evaluates a therapy when the WHO judges sufficient evidence is available to make a recommendation. While the GDG takes an individual patient perspective in making recommendations, it also considers resource implications, acceptability, feasibility, equity, and human rights. This guideline was developed according to standards and methods for trustworthy guidelines, making use of an innovative process to achieve efficiency in dynamic updating of recommendations. The methods are aligned with the WHO Handbook for Guideline Development and according to a pre-approved protocol (planning proposal) by the Guideline Review Committee (GRC). A box at the end of the article outlines key methodological aspects of the guideline process. MAGIC Evidence Ecosystem Foundation provides methodological support, including the coordination of living systematic reviews with network meta-analyses to inform the recommendations. The full version of the guideline is available online in MAGICapp and in PDF on the WHO website, with a summary version here in The BMJ. These formats should facilitate adaptation, which is strongly encouraged by WHO to contextualise recommendations in a healthcare system to maximise impact.
FUTURE RECOMMENDATIONS: Recommendations on anticoagulation are planned for the next update to this guideline. Updated data regarding systemic corticosteroids, azithromycin, favipiravir and umefenovir for non-severe illness, and convalescent plasma and statin therapy for severe or critical illness, are planned for review in upcoming guideline iterations.
Fulltext Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (3rd edition)

Klionsky DJ, Abdelmohsen K, Abe A, Abedin MJ, Abeliovich H, Acevedo Arozena A, et al.

Autophagy, 2016;12(1):1-222.
PMID: 26799652 DOI: 10.1080/15548627.2015.1100356
Fulltext Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (4th edition)1

Klionsky DJ, Abdel-Aziz AK, Abdelfatah S, Abdellatif M, Abdoli A, Abel S, et al.

Autophagy, 2021 Jan;17(1):1-382.
PMID: 33634751 DOI: 10.1080/15548627.2020.1797280

In 2008, we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, this topic has received increasing attention, and many scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Thus, it is important to formulate on a regular basis updated guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Despite numerous reviews, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to evaluate autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. Here, we present a set of guidelines for investigators to select and interpret methods to examine autophagy and related processes, and for reviewers to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of reports that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a dogmatic set of rules, because the appropriateness of any assay largely depends on the question being asked and the system being used. Moreover, no individual assay is perfect for every situation, calling for the use of multiple techniques to properly monitor autophagy in each experimental setting. Finally, several core components of the autophagy machinery have been implicated in distinct autophagic processes (canonical and noncanonical autophagy), implying that genetic approaches to block autophagy should rely on targeting two or more autophagy-related genes that ideally participate in distinct steps of the pathway. Along similar lines, because multiple proteins involved in autophagy also regulate other cellular pathways including apoptosis, not all of them can be used as a specific marker for bona fide autophagic responses. Here, we critically discuss current methods of assessing autophagy and the information they can, or cannot, provide. Our ultimate goal is to encourage intellectual and technical innovation in the field.