Influence of Indoor Temperature Exposure on Emergency Department Visits Due to Infectious and Non-Infectious Respiratory Diseases for Older People

Previous studies have demonstrated that outdoor temperature exposure was an important risk factor for respiratory diseases. However, no study investigates the effect of indoor temperature exposure on respiratory diseases and further assesses cumulative effect. The objective of this study is to study the cumulative effect of indoor temperature exposure on emergency department visits due to infectious (IRD) and non-infectious (NIRD) respiratory diseases among older adults. Subjects were collected from the Longitudinal Health Insurance Database in Taiwan. The cumulative degree hours (CDHs) was used to assess the cumulative effect of indoor temperature exposure. A distributed lag nonlinear model with quasi-Poisson function was used to analyze the association between CDHs and emergency department visits due to IRD and NIRD. For IRD, there was a significant risk at 27, 28, 29, 30, and 31 °C when the CDHs exceeded 69, 40, 14, 5, and 1 during the cooling season (May to October), respectively, and at 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23 °C when the CDHs exceeded 8, 1, 1, 35, and 62 during the heating season (November to April), respectively. For NIRD, there was a significant risk at 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23 °C when the CDHs exceeded 1, 1, 16, 36, and 52 during the heating season, respectively; the CDHs at 1 was only associated with the NIRD at 31 °C during the cooling season. Our data also indicated that the CDHs was lower among men than women. We conclude that the cumulative effects of indoor temperature exposure should be considered to reduce IRD risk in both cooling and heating seasons and NIRD risk in heating season and the cumulative effect on different gender

Comparison of the Associations between Self-Reported Sleep Quality and Sleep Duration Concerning the Risk of Depression: A Nationwide Population-Based Study in Indonesia

There is substantial evidence that a lack of sleep quality and duration can increase the risk of depression in adults. Still, few studies have compared sleep quality and duration to the risk of depression in Indonesia. Therefore, this study aimed to compare the prevalence and risk of depression associated with both sleep quality and duration and identified those factors associated with sleep quality with sleep duration. This study was a cross-sectional study, and the data were obtained from the 2014 Indonesian Family Life Survey, with a total sample comprised of 19,675 respondents aged older than 15 years old. A self-reported questionnaire was used to assess sleep quality and duration. Depression was assessed using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CESD-10) questionnaire. Logistic regression was used to examine the risk of depression, and multinomial logistic regression was used to examine the risk of poor sleep quality with consideration to sleep duration. The prevalence of depression was the highest in the poor sleep quality and long sleep duration groups (48.5%). After all variables associated with depression were adjusted, poor sleep quality was identified as a factor leading to a higher risk of depression (OR = 4.2; 95% CI: 3.7–4.6; p < 0.001) than long sleep duration (OR = 1.4; 95% CI: 1.2–1.6; p < 0.001). Furthermore, the interaction between poor sleep quality and long sleep duration gave the highest risk of depression (OR = 4.4; 95% CI: 3.6–5.3); p < 0.001). Multinomial logistic regression revealed that the factors leading to a significant increase in the risk of poor sleep quality, with consideration to sleep duration, in the population were age, gender, marital status, education, wealth index, physical activity, chronic illness, season, and urban area (p < 0.05). Sleep quality was found to be associated with a higher risk of depression than sleep duration. The findings of this study may be beneficial to healthcare professionals who develop health promotion strategies for reducing the incidence of depression in communities

Glycan-binding preferences and genetic evolution of human seasonal influenza A(H3N2) viruses during 1999-2007 in Taiwan

<div><p>It is generally agreed that human influenza virus preferentially binds to α-2,6-linked sialic acid-containing receptors, and mutations that change the binding preference may alter virus infectivity and host tropism. Limited information is available on the glycan-binding specificity of epidemic influenza viruses. In this study, we systemically investigated the glycan-binding preferences of human influenza A(H3N2) viruses isolated from 1999 to 2007 in Taiwan using a high-throughput carbohydrate array. The binding patterns of 37 H3N2 viruses were classified into three groups with significant binding-pattern variations. The results showed that the carbohydrate-binding patterns of H3N2 varied over time. A phylogenetic analysis of the hemagglutinin gene also revealed progressive drift year to year. Of note, the viruses that caused large outbreaks in 1999 and 2003 showed glycan-binding preferences to both α-2,3 and α-2,6 sialylated glycans. Twenty amino acid substitutions were identified primarily at antigenic sites that might contribute to H3N2 virus evolution and the change in the glycan-binding patterns. This study provides not only a systematic analysis of the receptor-binding specificity of influenza clinical isolates but also information that could help to monitor the outbreak potential and virus evolution of influenza viruses.</p></div

Cooperativity and Site Selectivity in the Ileal Lipid Binding Protein

The ileal lipid binding protein (ILBP or I-BABP) binds bile salts with positive cooperativity and has unusual site selectivity, whereby cholic acid binds preferentially in one site and chenodeoxycholic in another, despite both sites having an affinity for both ligands and the ligands only differing by a single hydroxyl group. Previous studies of the human variant have assumed that the ligand/protein binding ratio is 2:1, but we show, using electrospray ionization mass spectroscopy, that human ILBP binds bile acids with a 3:1 ratio, even at low protein and ligand concentrations. Docking calculations and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations identify an allosterically active binding site on the protein exterior that induces a change from a closed conformation to an open one, characterized by a movement of one of the α-helices by ∼10° with respect to the β-clam shell. Additional independent MD simulations of several hundred nanoseconds implicate the change between conformations in the mechanisms of both cooperativity and ligand site selectivity

In-solution proximity binding with photosensitizers to characterize the glycan-binding preference of influenza viruses.

<p>This figure is modified from our previous publication [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0196727#pone.0196727.ref016" target="_blank">16</a>]. Briefly, donor beads (500 ng/well) and biotin-PAA-sugars were mixed with inactivated viral particles. The mixture of acceptor beads, mouse anti-HA antibody, and rabbit anti-mouse IgG antibody was added. The binding signals were obtained on a PerkinElmer Envision instrument using the ALPHA Screen^TM program.</p

Phylogenetic analysis of human influenza A(H3N2) viruses isolated from 1999 to 2007in Taiwan.

<p>Consensus neighbor-joining trees were constructed from 1,000 bootstrap replicates of aligned HA1 sequences (nucleotide positions 52–915 of A/Brisbane/10/2007) from different influenza H3N2 isolates. The branch length was estimated by maximum likelihood and bootstrap values >70% are indicated at the nodes. *Asterisks indicate vaccine strains. Glycan-binding group 1 viruses are indicated with black triangles (▲), group 2 viruses are indicated with black circles (●), and group 3 viruses are indicated with black squares (■). The GenBank accession numbers for the vaccine strains are provided in brackets next to the virus names.</p

Thirty glycans immobilized on polyacrylamide included in the glycan microarray analysis.

<p>Thirty glycans immobilized on polyacrylamide included in the glycan microarray analysis.</p

The frequency of amino acid substitutions in the HA1 gene of H3N2 viruses isolated from 1999 to 2007 in Taiwan.

<p>The amino acid sequences were aligned by the BioEdit Sequence Alignment program, and the gene signature was displayed using the Phylo-mLogo program. The frequency of amino acid sequences relative to the total number of sequences in each indicated period is shown.</p

Pattern of the glycan-binding preference and epidemiology of human H3N2 viruses isolated from 1999 to 2007 in Taiwan.

<p>The glycan-binding patterns of the H3N2 clinical isolates are the same as shown in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0196727#pone.0196727.g002" target="_blank">Fig 2</a> and are grouped by years (A) and combined with the monthly distribution of the positive isolates of the H3N2 virus counts and the total number of influenza virus-positive isolates from 1999 to 2007 in Taiwan (B).</p