The novel amyloid-beta peptide aptamer inhibits intracellular amyloid-beta peptide toxicity

Amyloid β peptide binding alcohol dehydrogenase （ABAD） decoy peptide （DP） can competitively antagonize binding of amyloid β peptide to ABAD and inhibit the cytotoxic effects of amyloid β peptide. Based on peptide aptamers, the present study inserted ABAD-DP into the disulfide bond of human thioredoxin （TRX） using molecular cloning technique to construct a fusion gene that can express the TRX1-ABAD-DP-TRX2 aptamer. Moreover, adeno-associated virus was used to allow its stable expression. Immunofluorescent staining revealed the co-expression of the transduced fusion gene TRX1-ABAD-DP-TRX2 and amyloid β peptide in NIH-3T3 cells, indicating that the TRXl-ABAD-DP-TRX2 aptamer can bind amyloid β peptide within cells. In addition, cell morphology and MTT results suggested that TRX1-ABAD-DP-TRX2 attenuated amyloid β peptide-induced SH-SY5Y cell injury and improved cell viability. These findings confirmed the possibility of constructing TRX-based peptide aptamer using ABAD-DP. Moreover, TRXl-ABAD-DP-TRX2 inhibited the cytotoxic effect of amyloid β peptide.

First Fatal Infection and Phylodynamic Analysis of Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Virus in Jilin Province,Northeastern China

Dear Editor,Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome(SFTS),caused by SFTS virus(SFTSV)in the genus Banyangvirus of the family Phenuiviridae,is an emerging tick-borne viral zoonosis(Liu et al.2014).Typical clinical symptoms of SFTS include fever,headache,thrombocytopenia,and leukocytopenia(Yu et al.2011).Since SFTSV was identified in 2009,it has been found in more than 20 provinces in China and is closely related to strains from Japan and South Korea(Kim et al.2013;Takahashi et al.2014).

A case report of autochthonous Q fever with pneumonia and hepatitis in northeastern China

There are only a few case reports of Q fever caused by Coxiella burnetii in China,despite the nature as a ubiquitous zoonotic disease worldwide.In the northeast part of China,a 52-year-old male presented with fever,cough,shortness of breath,and sputum production,accompanied by headache,dizziness,chill,myalgia,and arthralgia.Chest computed tomography images showed pneumonia accompanied by bilateral scattered infiltrates and localized upper-lobe emphysema.The abnormal liver function was indicated by the increased levels of alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase.Through high-throughput sequencing and molecular detection,Coxiella burnetii was positive in the patient's blood specimens.After treatment with moxifloxacin hydrochloride and vidarabine monophosphate for 12 days,the patient completely recovered.To our knowledge,this was the first reported case of Q fever with pneumonia and hepatitis in this country.