Background: We aim to investigate the profile of acute antibody response in COVID-19 patients, and provide proposals for the usage of antibody test in clinical practice. Methods: A multi-center cross-section study (285 patients) and a single-center follow-up study (63 patients) were performed to investigate the feature of acute antibody response to SARS-CoV-2. A cohort of 52 COVID-19 suspects and 64 close contacts were enrolled to evaluate the potentiality of the antibody test. Results: The positive rate for IgG reached 100% around 20 days after symptoms onset. The median day of seroconversion for both lgG and IgM was 13 days after symptoms onset. Seroconversion of IgM occurred at the same time, or earlier, or later than that of IgG. IgG levels in 100% patients (19/19) entered a platform within 6 days after seroconversion. The criteria of ‘IgG seroconversion’ and ‘> 4-fold increase in the IgG titers in sequential samples’ together diagnosed 82.9% (34/41) of the patients. Antibody test aided to confirm 4 patients with COVID-19 from 52 suspects who failed to be confirmed by RT-PCR and 7 patients from 148 close contacts with negative RT-PCR. Conclusion: IgM and IgG should be detected simultaneously at the early phase of infection. The serological diagnosis criterion of seroconversion or the ‘>; 4-fold increase in the IgG titer’ is suitable for a majority of COVID-19 patients. Serologic test is helpful for the diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection in suspects and close contacts.

Excessive monocyte activation with the development of excessive or uncontrolled release of proinflammatory cytokines often results in host tissue injury and even death in patients with pneumonia caused by the 2019 novel coronavirus. However, the changes of cytokine profiles of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients, as well as the underlying mechanisms that are involved, remain unknown. Using a cytokine array containing 174 inflammation-related cytokines, we found significantly altered cytokine profiles in severe COVID-19 patients compared with those in mild patients or healthy controls, and identified leptin, CXCL-10, IL-6, IL-10, IL-12, and TNF-α as the top differentially expressed cytokines. Notably, leptin showed high consistency with CXCL-10 and TNF-α in predicting disease severity, and correlated with body mass index, decreased lymphocyte counts, and disease progression. Further analysis demonstrated that monocytes in severe patients with higher leptin levels were inclined toward M1 polarization. Mechanistic studies revealed that leptin synergistically up-regulated expression levels of inflammatory cytokines and surface markers with IL-6 in monocytes through STAT3 and NF-κB signaling pathways. Collectively, our results suggest that overweight COVID-19 patients were prone to have higher leptin levels, which further activated monocytes, resulting in amplified or dysregulated immune responses. Taken together, our findings argue that leptin correlates severity of COVID-19 and may indicate a possible mechanism by which overweight patients have a greater tendency to develop severe conditions.

In December 2019, the corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in Wuhan, China and rapidly spread worldwide. Few information on clinical features and immunological profile of COVID-19 in paediatrics. The clinical features and treatment outcomes of twelve paediatric patients confirmed as COVID-19 were analyzed. The immunological features of children patients was investigated and compared with twenty adult patients. The median age was 14.5-years (range from 0.64 to 17), and six of the patients were male. The average incubation period was 8 days. Clinically, cough (9/12, 75%) and fever (7/12, 58.3%) were the most common symptoms. Four patients (33.3%) had diarrhea during the disease. As to the immune profile, children had higher amount of total T cell, CD8+ T cell and B cell but lower CRP levels than adults (P < 0.05). Ground-glass opacity (GGO) and local patchy shadowing were the typical radiological findings on chest CT scan. All patients received antiviral and symptomatic treatment and the symptom relieved in 3–4 days after admitted to hospital. The paediatric patients showed mild symptom but with longer incubation period. Children infected with SARS-CoV-2 had different immune profile with higher T cell amount and low inflammatory factors level, which might ascribed to the mild clinical symptom. We advise that nucleic acid test or examination of serum IgM/IgG antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 should be taken for children with exposure history regardless of clinical symptom.

Acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) is a subtype of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). With the application of all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) and arsenic trioxide (ATO), APL becomes one of best prognosis of leukemia. However, ATRA and ATO are not effective against all APLs. Therefore, a new strategy for APL treatment is necessary. Here, we investigated whether lithium chloride (LiCl), a drug used for the treatment of mental illness, could promote apoptosis in human leukemia NB4 cells. We observed that treatment with LiCl significantly accelerated apoptosis in NB4 cells and led to cell cycle arrest at G2/M phase. Moreover, LiCl significantly increased the level of Ser9-phosphorylated glycogen synthase kinase 3β(p-GSK-3β), and decreased the level of Akt1 protein in a dose-dependent manner. In addition, LiCl inhibition of c-Myc also enhanced cell death with a concomitant increase in β-catnin. Taken together, these findings demonstrated that LiCl promoted apoptosis in NB4 cells through the Akt signaling pathway and that G2/M phase arrest was induced by increase of p-GSK-3β(S9).

Although previous researches have demonstrated that GINS2 express abundantly and abnormally in many malignant solid tumors, such as breast cancer, melanoma and hepatic carcinoma. However, the role and precise molecular mechanism in acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) are rarely reported. In this current study, we investigated the possible effect and particular mechanism of GINS2 in occurrence and development of APL. We synthesized interference plasmid targeted GINS2 successfully in vitro and also constructed recombinant adenovirus vector carrying GINS2 gene in order to down-regulate or up-regulate GINS2 expression from two aspects of positive and negative in APL. After siRNA were transfected into HL60 cells, both GINS2 expression level of mRNA and protein in interfering group were down-regulated when compared with control groups. Together, MTT and flow cytometry technology showed that cell growth was significantly inhibited. Moreover, the expression lever of Bax was distinctly increased whereas Bcl2 was dramatically decreased in transfected group. Further experiments revealed that down-regulation of GINS2 expression inhibited DNA replication and had a G2/M phase block in HL60 cells. What's more, ATM, CHK2, and P53 gene could involve in the pathogenic signaling pathways of HL60 cells when GINS2 gene was down-regulated. On the contrary, after HL60 cells were infected by recombinant adenovirus vector which contained GINS2 gene, we observed that over-expression of GINS2 could promote HL-60 cell proliferation. What's more, GINS2 might implicate a potential target for leukemia gene therapy.