The coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) caused by the novel coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2 has caused a global public health crisis. As of 7 January 2021, 87,640,402 confirmed cases and 1,891,692 mortalities have been reported worldwide. Studies focusing on the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of COVID-19 patients have suggested a dysregulated immune response characterized by lymphopenia and cytokine storm in these patients. The exaggerated immune response induced by the cytokine storm causes septic shock, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), and/or multiple organs failure, which increases the fatality rate of patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection. Herein, we review the recent research progress on epidemiology, clinical features, and system pathology in COVID-19. Moreover, we summarized the recent therapeutic strategies, which are either approved, under clinical trial, and/or under investigation by the local or global health authorities. We assume that treatments should focus on the use of antiviral drugs in combination with immunomodulators as well as treatment of the underlying comorbidities.

CRISPR/Cas9 therapeutics: a cure for cancer and other genetic diseases

Cancer is a major public health problem as one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Deciphering the molecular regulation mechanisms of tumor progression can make way for tumor diagnosis and therapy. Paternally expressed gene 10 (PEG10), located on human chromosome 7q21.3, has turned out to be an oncogene implicated in the proliferation, apoptosis and metastasis of tumors. PEG10 has been found to be positively expressed in a variety of cancers with seemingly complex expression regulation mechanisms. In this review, we focus on the most vital factors influencing PEG10 expression and recapitulate some of the currently known and potential mechanisms of PEG10 affecting tumor progression, as understanding the molecular regulatory mechanisms of tumor progression can provide potential PEG10 related diagnosis and biomarker specific targeted therapies.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the causative agent of tuberculosis (TB), which is still the leading cause of mortality from a single infectious disease worldwide. The development of novel anti-TB drugs and vaccines is severely hampered by the complicated and time-consuming genetic manipulation techniques for M. tuberculosis. Here, we harnessed an endogenous type III-A CRISPR/Cas10 system of M. tuberculosis for efficient gene editing and RNA interference (RNAi). This simple and easy method only needs to transform a single mini-CRISPR array plasmid, thus avoiding the introduction of exogenous protein and minimizing proteotoxicity. We demonstrated that M. tuberculosis genes can be efficiently and specifically knocked in/out by this system as confirmed by DNA high-throughput sequencing. This system was further applied to single- and multiple-gene RNAi. Moreover, we successfully performed genome-wide RNAi screening to identify M. tuberculosis genes regulating in vitro and intracellular growth. This system can be extensively used for exploring the functional genomics of M. tuberculosis and facilitate the development of novel anti-TB drugs and vaccines.

A pandemic designated as Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is spreading worldwide. Up to date, there is no efficient biomarker for the timely prediction of the disease progression in patients. To analyze the inflammatory profiles of COVID-19 patients and demonstrate their implications for the illness progression of COVID-19. Retrospective analysis of 3,265 confirmed COVID-19 cases hospitalized between 10 January 2020, and 26 March 2020 in three medical centers in Wuhan, China. Patients were diagnosed as COVID-19 and hospitalized in Leishenshan Hospital, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University and The Seventh Hospital of Wuhan, China. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression models were used to determine the possible risk factors for disease progression. Moreover, cutoff values, the sensitivity and specificity of inflammatory parameters for disease progression were determined by MedCalc Version 19.2.0. Age (95%CI, 1.017 to 1.048; P < 0.001), serum amyloid A protein (SAA) (95%CI, 1.216 to 1.396; P < 0.001) and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) (95%CI, 1.006 to 1.045; P < 0.001) were likely the risk factors for the disease progression. The Area under the curve (AUC) of SAA for the progression of COVID-19 was 0.923, with the best predictive cutoff value of SAA of 12.4 mg/L, with a sensitivity of 83.9% and a specificity of 97.67%. SAA-containing parameters are novel promising ones for predicting disease progression in COVID-19.

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