新型冠状病毒肺炎与mNGS技术

新型冠状病毒肺炎(Coronavirus Disease 2019,COVID 19)是指2019新型冠状病毒(Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2,SARS CoV 2)感染导致的肺炎。截至2020年5月21日已造成全球超过496万人感染、30万人以上死亡。宏基因组下一代测序(metagenomic next generation sequencing,mNGS)技术是在发现和检测新冠肺炎中发挥重要作用的技术。本文介绍了mNGS在新冠肺炎疫情中的作用及核心技术特点,并为mNGS在抗击全球疫情中的应用做出技术性归纳总结。     

以霍乱毒素B亚基为佐剂的SARS病毒核酸疫苗的构建

由于冠状病毒主要通过粘膜系统侵人细胞,因此有效的粘膜免疫效应对于SARS的免疫预防具有重要作用。通过将SARS冠状病毒免疫保护相关的核衣壳蛋白和辐条蛋白与霍乱毒素B亚基基因融合,并克隆至真核基因表达载体,所构建的DNA候选疫苗在细胞内可表达霍乱毒素B亚基与SARS抗原的融合蛋白,从而可用于评价是否可有效产生粘膜免疫。     

最早传入北京地区的SARS冠状病毒S基因序列分析和克隆

SARS冠状病毒的spike(S)蛋白对病毒的致病力至关重要,也是机体特异性体液和细胞免疫主要针对的靶分子。从北京地区最早发现的SARS患者咽拭子细胞培养上清中提取病毒RNA,用反转录巢式聚合酶链式反应(RTPCR)分6个片段扩增出S基因全序列,用TA载体克隆后进行DNA序列分析,再通过重叠PCR将6个片段连接成一条完整的S基因并克隆测序。DNA测序结果表明病毒S基因序列与报告的BJ01株SARS冠状病毒S基因序列完全一致,用重叠PCR将6个S基因片段连接成了一条完整的S基因,插入到pGEMT载体后读序完全正确。上述结果表明最早传入北京地区的病毒与新近报告的BJ01株SARS冠状病毒在分子流行病学上具有同源特征,重叠PCR技术可以用于有效连接多个基因片段。S区全基因的克隆为进一步研究该基因的功能和DNA疫苗等研究提供了基础。     

SARS冠状病毒分离培养和鉴定的实验研究

建立严重急性呼吸综合征(SARS)冠状病毒分离、培养方法,为SARS冠状病毒动物模型的建立提供实验依据,并根据病毒在体内存活的时间确定检测指标。选用已鉴定为SARS冠状病毒的毒株,经过鼻腔接种感染恒河猴。定期采集咽拭子标本,分离血清或血浆,用Vero细胞进行病毒培养、分离。结果显示,在SARS冠状病毒感染恒河猴后2、5、7天,可以从拭子中分离到病毒,5～15天可在猴肺、脾、肝、肾和淋巴组织中分离到病毒,并用免疫荧光法和RT-PCR方法进行了确定。首次实验证实了SARS冠状病毒可在恒河猴体内复制。SARS病毒的成功分离是SARS冠状病毒动物模型建立的主要依据,在进行疫苗安全性和药效评价等工作中,病毒分离可作为药物筛选、疫苗评价的重要指标。     

High-throughput screening of SARS-CoV-2 main and papain-like protease inhibitors

The global COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has infected over 109 million people, leading to over 2 million deaths up to date and still lacking of effective drugs for patient treatment. Here, we screened about 1.8 million small molecules against the main protease (M^pro) and papain like protease (PL^pro), two major proteases in severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 genome, and identified 1851M^pro inhibitors and 205 PL^pro inhibitors with low nmol/l activity of the best hits. Among these inhibitors, eight small molecules showed dual inhibition effects on both M^pro and PL^pro, exhibiting potential as better candidates for COVID-19 treatment. The best inhibitors of each protease were tested in antiviral assay, with over 40% of M^pro inhibitors and over 20% of PL^pro inhibitors showing high potency in viral inhibition with low cytotoxicity. The X-ray crystal structure of SARS-CoV-2 M^pro in complex with its potent inhibitor 4a was determined at 1.8 Å resolution. Together with docking assays, our results provide a comprehensive resource for future research on anti-SARS-CoV-2 drug development.     

SARS- CoV X4 基因转染对T 细胞 TNF- A及IL- 6 分泌的影响

目的：通过检测SARS-CoV X4基因转染后T细胞细胞因子分泌的变化,研究SARS-CoV X4蛋白潜在的功能及其作用机制,并探讨其与SARS-CoV致病机制的关系。方法：利用RosetteSep分离法分离外周血T细胞,以Amaxa核转染仪将pEGFP-SARS-CoV X4真核表达载体转入T细胞,应用激光共聚焦显微镜观察其瞬时表达情况,流式细胞仪检测转染效率,CBA技术检测T细胞细胞因子。结果：SARS-CoV X4基因转染后12h得到了明显表达,共聚焦显微镜观察到EGFP绿色荧光表达,流式细胞仪检测其表达率为245;与空载体转染组相比,SARS-CoV X4基因转染能显著促进T细胞IL-6及TNF-α的分泌。结论：SARS-CoV X4蛋白可诱导T细胞分泌前炎症因子IL-6及TNT-α,SARS-CoV X4蛋白可能在SARS发病机制中起重要的作用。     

Co-infection of respiratory bacterium with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus induces an exacerbated pneumonia in mice

SARS-CoV grows in a variety of tissues that express its receptor, although the mechanism for high replication in the lungs and severe respiratory illness is not well understood. We recently showed that elastase enhances SARS-CoV infection in cultured cells, which suggests that SARS development may be due to elastase-mediated, enhanced SARS-CoV infection in the lungs. To explore this possibility, we examined whether co-infection of mice with SARS-CoV and Pp, a low-pathogenic bacterium which elicits elastase production in the lungs, induces exacerbation of pneumonia. Mice co-infected with SARS-CoV and Pp developed severe respiratory disease with extensive weight loss, resulting in a 33~90% mortality rate. Mice with exacerbated pneumonia showed enhanced virus infection in the lungs and histopathological lesions similar to those found in human SARS cases. Intranasal administration of LPS, another elastase inducer, showed an effect similar to that of Pp infection. Thus, this study shows that exacerbated pneumonia in mice results from co-infection with SARS-CoV and a respiratory bacterium that induces elastase production in the lungs, suggesting a possible role for elastase in the exacerbation of pneumonia.     

Impact of quarantine on the 2003 SARS outbreak: a retrospective modeling study

During the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak, traditional intervention measures such as quarantine and border control were found to be useful in containing the outbreak. We used laboratory verified SARS case data and the detailed quarantine data in Taiwan, where over 150,000 people were quarantined during the 2003 outbreak, to formulate a mathematical model which incorporates Level A quarantine (of potentially exposed contacts of suspected SARS patients) and Level B quarantine (of travelers arriving at borders from SARS affected areas) implemented in Taiwan during the outbreak. We obtain the average case fatality ratio and the daily quarantine rate for the Taiwan outbreak. Model simulations is utilized to show that Level A quarantine prevented approximately 461 additional SARS cases and 62 additional deaths, while the effect of Level B quarantine was comparatively minor, yielding only around 5% reduction of cases and deaths. The combined impact of the two levels of quarantine had reduced the case number and deaths by almost a half. The results demonstrate how modeling can be useful in qualitative evaluation of the impact of traditional intervention measures for newly emerging infectious diseases outbreak when there is inadequate information on the characteristics and clinical features of the new disease-measures which could become particularly important with the looming threat of global flu pandemic possibly caused by a novel mutating flu strain, including that of avian variety.     

A strategy for searching antigenic regions in the SARS-CoV spike protein

In the face of the worldwide threat of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) to human life, some of the most urgent challenges are to develop fast and accurate analytical methods for early diagnosis of this disease as well as to create a safe anti-viral vaccine for prevention. To these ends, we investigated the antigenicity of the spike protein (S protein), a major structural protein in the SARS-coronavirus (SARS-CoV). Based upon the theoretical analysis for hydrophobicity of the S protein, 18 peptides were synthesized. Using Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA),these peptides were screened in the sera from SARS patients. According to these results, two fragments of the S gene were amplified by PCR and cloned into pET-32a. Both S fragments were expressed in the BL-21 strain and further purified with an affinity chromatography. These recombinant S fragments were confirmed to have positive cross-reactions with SARS sera, either by Western blot or by ELISA. Our results demonstrated that the potenti