A rapid and visual detection method for Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus by targeting S gene

Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever(CCHF)is a zoonotic disease caused by the CCHF virus(CCHFV),which is primarily transmitted by ticks(Lorenzo Juanes et al.2023).It is an emerging disease that occurs sporadically in Africa,Asia,and Europe,with a high morbidity and mortality rate,as high as 30%in humans(Ceylan et al.2013).CCHFV,belonging to genus Nairovirus,family Bunyaviridae,was first identified in the Congo in the 1960s.

Regulation of innate immune responses by rabies virus

Rabies virus(RABV)is an infectious and neurotropic pathogen that causes rabies and infects humans and almost all warm-blooded animals,posing a great threat to people and public safety.It is well known that innate immunity is the critical first line of host defense against viral infection.It monitors the invading pathogens by recognizing the pathogen-associated molecular patterns and danger-associated molecular patterns through pattern-recognition receptors,leading to the production of type I interferons(IFNα/β),inflammatory cytokines,and chemokines,or the activation of autophagy or apoptosis to inhibit virus replication.In the case of RABV,the innate immune response is usually triggered when the skin or muscle is bitten or scratched.However,RABV has evolved many ways to escape or even hijack innate immune response to complete its own replication and eventually invades the central nervous system(CNS).Once RABV reaches the CNS,it cannot be wiped out by the immune system or any drugs.Therefore,a better understanding of the interplay between RABV and innate immu-nity is necessary to develop effective strategies to combat its infection.Here,we review the innate immune responses induced by RABV and illustrate the antagonism mechanisms of RABV to provide new insights for the control of rabies.

Spatiotemporal variation of rainy season span and precipitation recorded by lacustrine laminated pollen in the Tibetan Plateau during the past two millennia

The quantitative reconstruction of the length of the rainy season and precipitation on the Tibetan Plateau(TP) is crucial for revealing the spatiotemporal evolution of the Westerlies and Asian summer monsoon, as well as its ecological and environmental effects. Accurately determining the start and end times of the rainy season on the Plateau remains challenging.This study determined the start and end times of the rainy season in different locations on the Plateau by identifying precipitation inflection points. We calculated the duration and precipitation amount of the rainy season and established a transfer function between the modern pollen assemblages and them. Then, we reconstructed the rainy season variations in Kusai Lake(northern TP) and Jiang Co(central TP) during the past two millennia. The results showed that, the rainy season precipitation in Kusai Lake recorded five periods of high precipitation: AD 580–680, 1000–1100, 1200–1450, 1550–1780, and 1920–present, corresponding to the stages with long rainy season. The rainy season precipitation sequence in Jiang Co recorded four periods of high precipitation: AD 80–500, 800–950, 1250–1450, and 1780–present, which is consistent with the long rainy season before AD 1000 but unclear afterward. Spatially, rainy season precipitation on the Plateau exhibited four patterns: “wet in both north and south” may be related to abnormally strong summer monsoons;“dry in both north and south” likely associated with weak Westerly wind and weak summer monsoon;“wet in the south and dry in the north” linked to strong summer monsoon and weak Westerly wind;and “dry in the south and wet in the north” connected to weak summer monsoon and strong Westerly wind. This study revealed the spatiotemporal evolution pattern of the rainy season onset and end, duration, and precipitation amount on the Plateau over the past two millennia. It provides natural background support for further understanding the coupling between Westerly wind and Asian summer monsoon.

A visual assay panel for the identification of monkeypox virus DNA belonging to the clades I and II

Dear Editor,Monkeypox virus(MPXV)is an enveloped double-stranded DNA virus belonging to the family Poxviridae,subfamily Chordopoxvirinae,and genus Orthopoxvirus(Hraib et al.,2022;Gong et al.,2022).MPXV forms Congo Basin clade(clade I)and West African clade(clade II)(Durski et al.,2018).Additionally,clade II consists of two subclades,clade IIa and clade IIb.

Human activities have altered fire-climate relations in arid Central Asia since~1000 a BP:evidence from a 4200-year-old sedimentary archive

Fire has crucial effects on ecosystem succession,the carbon cycle,and atmospheric chemical composition[1-3].Previous studies have shown that fire dynamics are closely related to regional vegetation and climate.Arid Central Asia(ACA)is sensitive to climate change,and grassland fires in ACA account for over 80%of the total burned area[4].In the face of intense global climate change,it is vital to understand how grassland burning responds long-term to climate and vegetation.Developing such an understanding would help predict fire activity and thus assist in the development of future fire management policies.

Spatial homogenization of soil-surface pollen assemblages improves the reliability of pollen-climate calibration-set

To make a reliable reconstruction of past climate from soil-surface modern pollen,it is necessary to reduce the sources of error.In this paper,pollen percentages of the sub-continental scale modern pollen-climate dataset from China and Mongolia(with 68%soil-surface samples)are homogenized at various spatial scales.A tailored calibration-set is then applied to lake sediment-surface pollen assemblages from north-central China to evaluate their predictive power.Results indicate that spatial homogenization of modern pollen percentages can increase the proportion of inertia explained by climatic variables in CCA and improve the model performance of leave-one-out cross-validation using WA-PLS.Soil-surface pollen assemblages can thus be employed into a calibration-set for reliable climate estimation and they perform better when the calibration-set has been locally homogenized.Small-scale(e.g.,radii 2,5,or 10 km)homogenization reduces the local noise in soil-surface pollen assemblages and improves the cross-validated performance,while broader scale homogenization(more than 20 km radius)blurs the pollen-climate relationship.Lake sediment-surface pollen assemblages from close to the shore could contain pollen grains transported by rivers or from the shore vegetation and thus fail to represent regional climate well like the assemblages from the central part and deep-water area of lake.