A novel coronavirus-severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)-emerged in humans in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 and has since disseminated globally
. As of April 16, 2020, the ...confirmed case count of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) had surpassed 2 million. Based on full-genome sequence analysis, SARS-CoV-2 shows high homology to SARS-related coronaviruses identified in horseshoe bats
. Here we show the establishment and characterization of expandable intestinal organoids derived from horseshoe bats of the Rhinolophus sinicus species that can recapitulate bat intestinal epithelium. These bat enteroids are fully susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection and sustain robust viral replication. Development of gastrointestinal symptoms in some patients with COVID-19 and detection of viral RNA in fecal specimens suggest that SARS-CoV-2 might cause enteric, in addition to respiratory, infection
. Here we demonstrate active replication of SARS-CoV-2 in human intestinal organoids and isolation of infectious virus from the stool specimen of a patient with diarrheal COVID-19. Collectively, we established the first expandable organoid culture system of bat intestinal epithelium and present evidence that SARS-CoV-2 can infect bat intestinal cells. The robust SARS-CoV-2 replication in human intestinal organoids suggests that the human intestinal tract might be a transmission route of SARS-CoV-2.
The exploration of high nuclearity molecular metal oxide clusters and their reactivity is a challenge for chemistry and materials science. Herein, we report an unprecedented giant molecular ...cerium–bismuth tungstate superstructure formed by self‐assembly from simple metal oxide precursors in aqueous solution. The compound, {W14CeIV6O61(W3Bi6CeIII3(H2O)3O14B‐α‐BiW9O333)2}34− was identified by single‐crystal X‐ray diffraction and features 104 metal centers, a relative molar mass of ca. 24 000 and is ca. 3.0×2.0×1.7 nm3 in size. The cluster anion is assembled around a central {Ce6} octahedron which is stabilized by several molecular metal oxide shells. Six trilacunary Keggin anions (B‐α‐BiW9O339−) cap the superstructure and limit its growth. In the crystal lattice, water‐filled channels with diameters of ca. 0.5 nm are observed, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy shows pronounced proton conductivity even at low temperature.
A giant cerium–bismuth tungstate cluster featuring more than 100 metal ions and a relative molar mass of approximately 24 000 is structurally characterized. The cluster anions form a highly 3D‐porous crystalline lattice featuring water‐filled channels. Proton conductivity measurements show high proton mobility within the framework.
The hierarchical aggregation of molecular nanostructures from multiple components is a grand synthetic challenge, which requires highly selective linkage control. We demonstrate how two orthogonal ...linkage groups, that is, organotin and lanthanide cations, can be used to drive the aggregation of a giant molecular metal oxide superstructure. The title compound {(Sn(CH3)2)2O4{CeW5O18 TeW4O16CeSn(CH3)24TeW8O314}2}46− (1 a) features dimensions of ca. 2.2×2.3×3.4 nm3 and a molecular weight of ca. 25 kDa. Structural analysis shows the hierarchical aggregation from several independent subunits. Initial biomedical tests show that 1 features an inhibitory effect on the proliferation of HeLa cells based on an apoptosis pathway. In vivo experiments in mice reveal the antiproliferative activity of 1 and open new paths for further development of this new compound class.
Hierarchical assembly of a giant heterometallic polyoxotungstate supercluster with a molecular weight of ca. 25 kDa is reported. Geometrically unrestricted cerium(III) and geometrically restricted dimethyl tin cation linkers are used to gain access to a giant molecular species featuring three different polyoxometalate building units. The compound demonstrates in vitro and in vivo antiproliferative activity against HeLa cervical cancer cell lines.
Objective: Improve the reconstructed image with fast and multiclass dictionaries learning when magnetic resonance imaging is accelerated by undersampling the k-space data. Methods: A fast orthogonal ...dictionary learning method is introduced into magnetic resonance image reconstruction to provide adaptive sparse representation of images. To enhance the sparsity, image is divided into classified patches according to the same geometrical direction and dictionary is trained within each class. A new sparse reconstruction model with the multiclass dictionaries is proposed and solved using a fast alternating direction method of multipliers. Results: Experiments on phantom and brain imaging data with acceleration factor up to 10 and various undersampling patterns are conducted. The proposed method is compared with state-of-the-art magnetic resonance image reconstruction methods. Conclusion: Artifacts are better suppressed and image edges are better preserved than the compared methods. Besides, the computation of the proposed approach is much faster than the typical K-SVD dictionary learning method in magnetic resonance image reconstruction. Significance: The proposed method can be exploited in undersampled magnetic resonance imaging to reduce data acquisition time and reconstruct images with better image quality.
Compressed sensing (CS) has exhibited great potential for accelerating magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In CS-MRI, we want to reconstruct a high-quality image from very few samples in a short time. ...In this paper, we propose a fast algorithm, called projected iterative soft-thresholding algorithm (pISTA), and its acceleration pFISTA for CS-MRI image reconstruction. The proposed algorithms exploit sparsity of the magnetic resonance (MR) images under the redundant representation of tight frames. We prove that pISTA and pFISTA converge to a minimizer of a convex function with a balanced tight frame sparsity formulation. The pFISTA introduces only one adjustable parameter, the step size, and we provide an explicit rule to set this parameter. Numerical experiment results demonstrate that pFISTA leads to faster convergence speeds than the state-of-art counterpart does, while achieving comparable reconstruction errors. Moreover, reconstruction errors incurred by pFISTA appear insensitive to the step size.
Behcet's syndrome (BS) is a complex, heterogeneous disorder. However, classification of its subgroups is still debated. The purpose of this study was to investigate the clinical features and ...aggregation of patients with BS in China, based on manifestations and organ involvements.
This was a cross-sectional study of BS patients in Huadong Hospital of Fudan University between September 2012 and January 2020. We calculated relative risks (RRs) of clinical variables according to sex. Moreover, we conducted a hierarchical cluster analysis applied according to eighteen variables to determine subgroups of patients.
A total of 860 BS patients were included. Male sex was associated with ocular involvement (RR 2.32, 95% CI 1.67, 3.22, P < 0.0001), vascular involvement (RR 2.00, 95% CI 1.23, 3.23, P = 0.004), cardiac lesion (RR 5.46, 95% CI 2.33, 12.77, P < 0.0001), and central nervous system involvement (RR 2.95, 95% CI 1.07, 6.78, P = 0.007) and was negatively associated with genital ulcers (RR 0.84, 95% CI 0.79, 0.91, P < 0.0001). Five clusters (C1-C5) were observed. C1 (n = 307) showed the skin and mucosa type. In C2 (n = 124), all had articular involvement, barely having major organ involvement except for 18 cases with intestinal lesions. In C3 (n = 156), the gastrointestinal type, 144 patients presented with intestinal involvement, and 36 patients with esophageal ulcers. In C4 (n = 142), all subjects presented with uveitis. C5 (n = 131) consisted of 44 patients with cardiac lesions, 58 with vascular involvement, and 26 cases having central nervous system involvement.
Our analysis confirmed sex differences in phenotypes of BS. Cluster analysis identified gastrointestinal, uveitis, and cardiovascular involvement cluster separately in different subsets, which represents the most commonly involved organs. Further research is required to replicate and clarify the patterns of phenotype in BS.
A spectrally sparse signal of order r is a mixture of r damped or undamped complex sinusoids. This paper investigates the problem of reconstructing spectrally sparse signals from a random subset of n ...regular time domain samples, which can be reformulated as a low rank Hankel matrix completion problem. We introduce an iterative hard thresholding (IHT) algorithm and a fast iterative hard thresholding (FIHT) algorithm for efficient reconstruction of spectrally sparse signals via low rank Hankel matrix completion. Theoretical recovery guarantees have been established for FIHT, showing that O(r2log2(n)) number of samples are sufficient for exact recovery with high probability. Empirical performance comparisons establish significant computational advantages for IHT and FIHT. In particular, numerical simulations on 3D arrays demonstrate the capability of FIHT on handling large and high-dimensional real data.
The Omicron (B.1.1.529) variant of SARS-CoV-2 emerged in November 2021 and is rapidly spreading among the human population
. Although recent reports reveal that the Omicron variant robustly escapes ...vaccine-associated and therapeutic neutralization antibodies
, the pathogenicity of the virus remains unknown. Here we show that the replication of Omicron is substantially attenuated in human Calu3 and Caco2 cells. Further mechanistic investigations reveal that Omicron is inefficient in its use of transmembrane serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2) compared with wild-type SARS-CoV-2 (HKU-001a) and previous variants, which may explain its reduced replication in Calu3 and Caco2 cells. The replication of Omicron is markedly attenuated in both the upper and lower respiratory tracts of infected K18-hACE2 mice compared with that of the wild-type strain and Delta (B.1.617.2) variant, resulting in its substantially ameliorated lung pathology. Compared with wild-type SARS-CoV-2 and the Alpha (B.1.1.7), Beta (1.351) and Delta variants, infection by Omicron causes the lowest reduction in body weight and the lowest mortality rate. Overall, our study demonstrates that the replication and pathogenicity of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 in mice is attenuated compared with the wild-type strain and other variants.
Polyoxometalate-intercalated layered double hydroxide (POM-LDH) nanocomposites have received considerable attention in recent years because such nanocomposites not only inherit the intrinsic ...properties of POMs and LDHs but also exert significant synergistic effects during the catalytic process. In this frontier article, we present the latest advances on the POM-LDH nanocomposites ranging from new synthetic methods to catalytic applications. By making use of the host layer modification method and exfoliation assembly method, the as-prepared POM-LDH nanocomposites show a wide range of catalytic applications. The challenges and future opportunities are also discussed by highlighting some creative work on related POM- or LDH-based materials.
Polyoxometalates-intercalated layered double hydroxides (POMs-LDHs) nanocomposites have received considerable attention recently owing to the intrinsic properties of POMs and LDHs and significant synergistic effects during the catalytic process.
Self‐powered ultraviolet (UV) photodetectors, which have vast applications in the military and for civilian purposes, have become particularly attractive in recent years due to their advantages of ...high sensitivity, ultrasmall size, and low power consumption. In particular, self‐powered UV photodetectors driven by a built‐in electric field cannot only detect UV signals but also be powered by the incident signals instead of external power. In this concept, the key issues and most recent developments on photovoltaic type UV photodetectors driven by p–n homojunction, heterojunction, and Schottky junction are surveyed. This should generate extensive interest in this field and encourage more researchers to engage in and tackle the scientific challenges.
In this Concept, self‐powered UV photodetectors driven by a built‐in electric field are presented, which is extremely important for applications in UV detection. The key issues and developments of photovoltaic‐type UV photodetectors driven by the p–n homojunction, heterojunction, and Schottky junction are surveyed. Additionally, the development tendency of next generation photovoltaic‐type UV is also proposed.
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