Higher Infection of Dengue Virus Serotype 2 in Human Monocytes of Patients with G6PD Deficiency

The prevalence of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency is high in Asia. An ex vivo study was conducted to elucidate the association of G6PD deficiency and dengue virus (DENV) infection when many Asian countries are hyper-endemic. Human monocytes from peripheral mononuclear cells collected from 12 G6PD-deficient patients and 24 age-matched controls were infected with one of two DENV serotype 2 (DENV-2) strains–the New Guinea C strain (from a case of dengue fever) or the 16681 strain (from a case of dengue hemorrhagic fever) with a multiplicity of infection of 0.1. The infectivity of DENV-2 in human monocytes was analyzed by flow cytometry. Experimental results indicated that the monocytes of G6PD-deficient patients exhibited a greater levels of infection with DENV-2 New Guinea C strain than did those in healthy controls [mean±SD:33.6%±3.5 (27.2%∼39.2%) vs 20.3%±6.2 (8.0%∼30.4%), P<0.01]. Similar observations were made of infection with the DENV-2 16681 strain [40.9%±3.9 (35.1%∼48.9%) vs 27.4%±7.1 (12.3%∼37.1%), P<0.01]. To our knowledge, this study demonstrates for the first time higher infection of human monocytes in G6PD patients with the dengue virus, which may be important in increasing epidemiological transmission and perhaps with the potential to develop more severe cases pathogenically

Stabilizing immature breathing patterns of preterm infants using stochastic mechanosensory stimulation

Breathing patterns in preterm infants consist of highly variable interbreath intervals (IBIs) that might originate from nonlinear properties of the respiratory oscillator and its input-output responses to peripheral and central signals. Here, we explore a property of nonlinear control, the potential for large improvement in the stability of breathing using low-level exogenous stochastic stimulation. Stimulation was administered to 10 preterm infants (postconceptional age: mean 33.3 wk, SD 1.7) using a mattress with embedded actuators that delivered small stochastic displacements (0.021 mm root mean square, 0.090 mm maximum, 30–60 Hz); this stimulus was subthreshold for causing arousal from sleep to wakefulness or other detectable changes in the behavioral state evaluated with polysomnography. We used a test-retest protocol with multiple 10-min intervals of stimulation, each paired with 10-min intervals of no stimulation. Stimulation induced an ∼50% reduction (P = 0.003) in the variance of IBIs and an ∼50% reduction (P = 0.002) in the incidence of IBIs > 5 s. The improved stability of eupneic breathing was associated with an ∼65% reduction (P = 0.04) in the duration of O2 desaturation. Our findings suggest that nonlinear properties of the immature respiratory control system can be harnessed using afferent stimuli to stabilize eupneic breathing, thereby potentially reducing the incidence of apnea and hypoxia