Age of people with type 2 diabetes and the risk of dying following SARS‐CoV‐2 infection

From Wiley via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: pub-electronic 2021-07-21, pub-print 2021-08Article version: VoRPublication status: Publishe

Modelling the impact of the mandatory use of face coverings on public transport and in retail outlets in the UK on COVID‐19‐related infections, hospital admissions and mortality

IntroductionThe rapid spread of the pandemic caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2/)(COVID‐19) virus resulted in governments around the world instigating a range of measures, including mandating the wearing of face coverings on public transport/in retail outlets.MethodsWe developed a sequential assessment of the risk reduction provided by face coverings using a step‐by‐step approach. The UK Office of National Statistics (ONS) Population Survey data were utilised to determine the baseline total number of community‐derived infections. These were linked to reported hospital admissions/hospital deaths to create case admission risk ratio and admission‐related fatality rate. We evaluated published evidence to establish an infection risk reduction for face coverings. We calculated an Infection Risk Score (IRS) for a number of common activities and related it to the effectiveness of reducing infection and its consequences, with a face covering, and evaluated their effect when applied to different infection rates over 3 months from July 24, 2020, when face coverings were made compulsory in England on public transport/retail outlets.ResultsWe show that only 7.3% of all community‐based infection risk is associated with public transport/retail outlets. In the week of July 24, The reported weekly community infection rate was 29 400 new cases at the start (July 24). The rate of growth in hospital admissions and deaths for England was around −15%/week, suggesting the infection rate, R, in the most vulnerable populations was just above 0.8. In this situation, average infections over the evaluated 13 week follow‐up period, would be 9517/week with face covering of 40% effectiveness, thus, reducing average infections by 844/week, hospital admissions by 8/week and deaths by 0.6/week; a fall of 9% over the period total. If, however, the R‐value rises to 1.0, then, average community infections would stay at 29 400/week and mandatory face coverings could reduce average weekly infections by 3930, hospital admissions by 36 and deaths by 2.9/week; a 13% reduction.If the R‐value rose and stayed at 1.2, then, expected average community‐derived hospital admissions would be 975/week and 40% effective face coverings would reduce this by 167/week and reduce possible expected hospital deaths from 80/week to 66/week.These reductions should be seen in the context that there was an average of 102 000/week all‐cause hospital emergency admissions in England in June and 8900 total reported deaths in the week ending August 7, 2020.ConclusionWe have illustrated that the policy on mandatory use of face coverings in retail outlets/on public transport may have been very well followed, but may be of limited value in reducing hospital admissions and deaths, at least at the time that it was introduced, unless infections begin to rise faster than currently seen. The impact appears small compared with all other sources of risk, thereby raising questions regarding the effectiveness of the policy

Potential impact of European Medicines Agency measures to minimise risk of serious side effects on JAKi prescribing and utilisation in the UK

Objective Janus kinase inhibitors (JAKi) or targeted synthetic (ts) disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) effectively treat rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, due to safety concerns, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) published risk minimisation measures limiting JAKi prescription to certain at-risk patients unless no suitable alternative is available. This analysis included patients who had started their first-ever JAKi before EMA measures were published in a large national cohort study to investigate the potential impact of these measures on JAKi prescribing and utilisation in UK.Method RA patients starting first-ever JAK inhibitor therapy in BSRBR-RA between 13-February-2017 and 31-May-2022 were included. Percentages of patients meeting EMA risk criteria were presented. For at-risk patients, previous number of distinct biological (b) DMARD classes were described. Result A total of 1341 patients were included, and 80% (N=1075) met ≥1 EMA risk criterion. Of those who met ≥1 risk criterion, 529 patients (49%) had received JAKi as their first or second b/tsDMARD class, whereas 299 (28%) had received ≥3 prior bDMARD classes.Conclusion Four-in-five RA patients commencing JAKi before the EMA advisory were considered ‘at-risk' with prescribing only advised if there was no suitable alternative. Almost a third of those patients had already received ≥3 bDMARDs classes, and alternative therapies would be very limited for them; meanwhile, suitable alternatives might have existed for the remaining proportion, especially for those who received JAKi as their first or second b/tsDMARD, and re-evaluation of the suitability of their treatment may be needed.<br/

Improving the Dyeing Properties of Peanut Skin Extracts to Flax Fabrics by Chitosan Pretreatment

Using chitosan as pretreatment agent, the dyeing properties of peanut skin extracts (PSE) to flax fabrics were improved. Flax fabrics have excellent comfort property and are loved by many people. However, flax is different to dye, especially with natural dye. In this research, chitosan was used to pretreat flax fabrics and PSE was used to dye the pretreated flax fabric. The optimal conditions of the chitosan pretreatment and dyeing conditions of PSE were investigated according to the K/S value of the dyed flax fabrics. Comparing the original flax fabric, the chitosan pretreated flax fabric significantly improved the absorption to PSE, and the dyed fabrics had an increased K/S value from 0.9 to 3.9, and had good color fastnesses. The main chemical constitution in PSE such as catechin, chitosan, and cellulose of flax fabrics may form hydrogen bond and ionic bond. Chitosan pretreated and dyed flax fabrics had a stronger ability to UV resistance and scavenging free radicals. The fluorescence intensity of the dyed flax fabrics was improved while it was decreased after chitosan pretreatment. Chitosan pretreatment combined PSE dyeing can be used to develop functional flax textiles without using metallic mordants

Overexpression of the Bacillus licheniformis GroES enhances thermotolerance of Bacillus subtilis WB600

Use of thermotolerant strains offers the advantage of conducting production process at elevated temperatures, thereby improving the catalytic efficiency and reducing the energy consumption and the production costs. In the present study, thermotolerance gene groES from the thermophilic strain Bacillus licheniformis B186 was implanted into B. subtilis WB600 to improve its thermotolerance. The engineered strain WB600-pHY-groES displayed reduced doubling time as well as increased specific growth rates and cell viability compared with the control. Our results suggested that introducing heat shock proteins (HSPs) from thermophiles into B. subtilis could be an effective approach to enhance its thermotolerance, thus facilitating the development of multichaperone expression systems for constructing more thermotolerant commercial B. subtilis strains. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on improving the thermotolerance of B. subtilis by overexpression of HSPs

Unzipped Multiwalled Carbon Nanotube Oxide/Multiwalled Carbon Nanotube Hybrids for Polymer Reinforcement

Multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) have been widely used as nanofillers for polymer reinforcement. However, it has been restricted by the limited available interface area of MWNTs in the polymer matrices. Oxidation unzipping of MWNTs is an effective way to solve this problem. The unzipped multiwalled carbon nanotube oxides (UMCNOs) exhibit excellent enhancement effect with low weight fractions, but agglomeration of UMCNOs at a relatively higher loading still hampered the mechanical reinforcement of polymer composites. In this paper, we interestingly found that the dispersion of UMCNOs in polymer matrices can be significantly improved with the combination of pristine MWNTs. The hybrids of MWNTs and UMCNOs (U/Ms) can be easily obtained by adding the pristine MWNTs into the UMCNOs aqueous dispersion, followed by sonication. With a π-stacking interaction, the UMCNOs were attached onto the outwalls of MWNTs. The morphologies and structure of the U/Ms were characterized by several measurements. The mechanical testing of the resultant poly­(vinyl alcohol) (PVA)-based composites demonstrated that the U/Ms can be used as ideal reinforcing fillers. Compared to PVA, the yield strength and Young’s modulus of U/M–PVA composites with a loading of 0.7 wt % of the U/Ms approached ∼145.8 MPa and 6.9 GPa, respectively, which are increases of ∼107.4% and ∼122.5%, respectively. The results of tensile tests demonstrated that the reinforcement effect of U/Ms is superior to the individual UMCNOs and MWNTs, because of the synergistic interaction of UMCNOs and MWNTs

Improved ethanol productivity from lignocellulosic hydrolysates by Escherichia coli with regulated glucose utilization

CITATION: Sun, Jinfeng, et al. 2018. Improved ethanol productivity from lignocellulosic hydrolysates by Escherichia coli with regulated glucose utilization. Microbial Cell Factories, 17:66, doi:10.1186/s12934-018-0915-x.The original publication is available at https://microbialcellfactories.biomedcentral.comBackground: Lignocellulosic ethanol could offer a sustainable source to meet the increasing worldwide demand for fuel. However, efficient and simultaneous metabolism of all types of sugars in lignocellulosic hydrolysates by ethanolproducing strains is still a challenge. Results: An engineered strain Escherichia coli B0013-2021HPA with regulated glucose utilization, which could use all monosaccharides in lignocellulosic hydrolysates except glucose for cell growth and glucose for ethanol production, was constructed. In E. coli B0013-2021HPA, pta-ackA, ldhA and pflB were deleted to block the formation of acetate, lactate and formate and additional three mutations at glk, ptsG and manZ generated to block the glucose uptake and catabolism, followed by the replacement of the wild-type frdA locus with the ptsG expression cassette under the control of the temperature-inducible λ pR and pL promoters, and the final introduction of pEtac-PA carrying Zymomonas mobilis pdc and adhB for the ethanol pathway. B0013-2021HPA was able to utilize almost all xylose, galactose and arabinose but not glucose for cell propagation at 34 °C and converted all sugars to ethanol at 42 °C under oxygenlimited fermentation conditions. Conclusions: Engineered E. coli strain with regulated glucose utilization showed efficient metabolism of mixed sugars in lignocellulosic hydrolysates and thus higher productivity of ethanol production.https://microbialcellfactories.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12934-018-0915-xPublisher's versio