Chikungunya virus glycoproteins pseudotype with lentiviral vectors and reveal a broad spectrum of cellular tropism.

Outbreaks of the Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) infection has been documented in over 40 countries, resulting in clinical symptoms characterized by fever and joint pain. Diagnosing CHIKV in a clinical lab setting is often omitted because of the high lab safety requirement. An infection system that mimics CHIKV infection will permit clinical evaluation of the production of neutralizing antibody for both disease diagnostics and treatment.We generated a CHIKV construct expressing CHIKV structural proteins. This construct permits the production of CHIKV pseudo-viral particles with a luciferase reporter. The pseudo-virus was able to infect a wide range of cell lines. The pseudovirus could be neutralized by the addition of neutralizing antibodies from patients.Taken together, we have developed a powerful system that can be handled at biosafety level 2 laboratories for evaluation of existence of CHIKV neutralizing antibodies

Alkaline diagenesis and its effects on reservoir porosity: A case study of Upper Triassic Chang 7 Member tight sandstone in Ordos Basin, NW China

Petrologic features, diagenetic processes and origins of different pore types of Upper Triassic Chang 7 (7th member of Yanchang Formation) tight sandstones in the Ordos Basin were analyzed based on cast thin sections, scanning electron microscope (SEM), and X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD). The diagenetic processes caused by alkaline pore fluid and associated pores were studied in detail and the relationship between porosity evolution and hydrocarbon accumulation was analyzed. The Chang 7 tight sandstone commonly experienced alkaline environment and associated diagenesis, including quartz dissolution or replaced by mica, clay and carbonate minerals, carbonate cementation, abundant authigenic illite and chlorite with minor kaolinte and smectite, and albitization. Several types of associated pores were formed in the alkaline environment, including quartz dissolution pore, intercrystal pore of clay minerals, interlamination pore of hydrated mica and pores associated with albitization. The alkaline diagenesis mainly occurred in two periods during the burial process: B stage of early diagenesis and A2 stage of mesogenetic diagenesis. The abundant intercrystal micropores of clay minerals, which mainly occurred during the B stage of early diagenesis, seriously reduced the permeability of sandstone. As a result, the acid dissolution in the later stage was not intense enough due to the low permeability, so it is inferred that the sandstone had already been compacted very tight before the major hydrocarbon charging. Key words: Ordos Basin, tight oil reservoir, alkaline diagenetic environment, diagenesis, pore typ

Development of sedimentary geology of petroliferous basins in China

This paper gives a contrastive analysis of the main progress made in petroliferous basins sedimentary geology domestically and internationally, and discusses the main problems and their solutions in the development of petroliferous basins sedimentology in China, New developments include coarse-grained depositional sysytem, shallow-water deltic depositional system, beach bar depositional system, deep-water gravity flows, fine-grained depositional system, carbonate reefs, mixosedimentite, microbialite, seismic sedimentology and sedimentary physical simulation. It also reveals the developing gap of Chinese sedimentology in the areas of microbialite and sedimentary simulation, etc. and analyzes the sedimentary features and paleogeography pattern of prototype basins, multi-scale paleogeographic recovery during major tectonic movements, the different explanation of new sedimentology theories in the deep-buried sandbodies development. The paper details the difficulties when it comes to the typical depositional systems combination and the setup of sedimentary models in China. Therefore, the developing tendency is described of sedimentology theories like source to sink, sedimentary dynamics as well as regional sedimentology in China, seismic sedimentology, and studying methods and technologies in sedimentary simulation. Key words: development, shallow-water delta, gravity flow, beach-bar, mixosedimentite, microbialite, seismic sedimentology, sedimentology, Chin

Association of multiple anthropometric indices with in 944,760 elderly Chinese people

OBJECTIVES The aims of this study were to update the latest data on the prevalence of hypertension (HTN) in the elderly Chinese population and to assess relationships between new anthropometric indices and HTN. METHODS Data were obtained from the Basic Public Health Service (BPHS) survey for Jiangsu Province, China. A total of 944,760 people aged 65 years and older were included in this study. Blood pressure was measured by trained investigators. Body weight, body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), waist-to-height ratio (WtHR), conicity index (COI), body roundness index (BRI), and a body shape index (ABSI) were included in the analysis as anthropometric indices. Logistic regression analysis and restricted cubic splines were used to evaluate the association of anthropometric indices with HTN. RESULTS The prevalence of HTN among elderly residents of Jiangsu Province was 64.7% (95% confidence interval, 64.6 to 64.8). After adjusting for multiple covariates, all anthropometric indices except ABSI showed significant non-linear positive dose-response associations with HTN across sex (pnonlinear<0.001). Among participants with BMI <28 kg/m2, abnormal weight, WC, WtHR, BRI, COI, and ABSI were positively associated with HTN. CONCLUSIONS The prevalence of HTN in the elderly in Jiangsu Province is gradually increasing. It is necessary to consider the combination of ABSI and COI with BMI for screening elderly individuals for HTN in follow-up prospective studies

Neutralization of the CHIKV-pseudovirus by patients' derived anti-sera.

<p><b>A</b>. Dose-dependent neutralization of CHIKV-pseudovirus by serum samples from three CHIKV infected patients. Normal serum from a healthy donor was included as negative control. Luciferase assay was determined two days after infection. <b>B</b>. VSV-G pseudovirus infection was not blocked by the three patients' sera. Pseudoviruses were incubated with serially diluted serum. The mixture was added to cells and luciferase activity was measured. The percent inhibition by CHIKV-infected patients sera (no. 1–3) was calculated relative to normal serum from an uninfected donor (n = 3, mean± S.D.).</p

Fluorene Side-Chained Benzodithiophene Polymers for Low Energy Loss Solar Cells

Here we design and synthesize one novel fluorene side-chained benzodithiophene (BDT) monomer for polymer solar cells (PSCs) donor. By copolymerizing this monomer with 4,7-di­(thiophen-2-yl)-2,1,3-benzo­thiadiazole (DTBT) or 4,7-di­(4-(2-ethylhexyl)-2-thienyl)-5,6-difluoro-2,1,3-benzo­thiadiazole (DT<i>ff</i>BT), two donor–acceptor (D–A) conjugated polymers PFBDT–DTBT and PFBDT–DT<i>ff</i>BT are prepared. PSCs are prepared with these polymers as donor and PC₇₁BM as acceptor. The maximum power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the two polymers PFBDT–DTBT and PFBDT–DT<i>ff</i>BT based PSCs is 7.13% (<i>V</i>_OC = 0.90 V, <i>J</i>_SC = 13.26 mA cm^–2, and FF = 0.598) and 7.33% (<i>V</i>_OC = 0.96 V, <i>J</i>_SC = 13.24 mA cm^–2, and FF = 0.577). The UV–vis absorption and electrochemical cyclic voltammetry test results show that F atoms in DT<i>ff</i>BT unit present an obvious influence on intermolecular effect and molecular energy levels of polymers. Furthermore, the energy loss of two PSCs devices in this work is confirmed to be 0.78 and 0.71 eV, lower than most results based on BDT PSCs devices, which is critical to obtain high PCE PSCs devices with a decent trade-off between <i>J</i>_SC and <i>V</i>_OC

Cellular permissivity measured by CHIKV pseudovirus infection.

<p>Relative light units (RLU) are shown as averages of three independent experiments.</p><p>* Under 200 RLUs,</p><p>** 1000–10,000 RLUs,</p><p>*** 10,001–20,000 RLUs,</p><p>**** 50,000–1,000,000 RLUs,</p><p>***** 1,000,001–2,000,000 RLUs.</p><p>Env- pseudovirus infection yielded RLUs under 200RLUs and were considered negative in Column 2.</p><p>Cellular permissivity measured by CHIKV pseudovirus infection.</p

CHIKVpp infection of joint cells.

<p>5×10⁵ cells isolated from human joint tissues were infected by CHIKVpp or VSV-Gpp. Luciferase assay was determined two days post-infection.</p