SARS-CoV-2 antigen persists in long Covid-19 patients

Publication success!

We have another paper from our colleague Joe YEONG 杨宝诚 and his collaborators in Singapore to highlight! Joe Yeong et al. have published data from another intriguing case study showing that residual SARS-CoV-2 antigen and RNA can persist in various tissues of long-COVID-19 patients, even beyond a year since SARS-CoV-2 infection.

While these data have been generated from only two cases, other reports are emerging elsewhere of SARS-CoV-2 reservoirs in gastrointestinal and non-gastrointestinal tissues. It therefore seems possible that such viral persistence is underlying long Covid-19 symptoms in affected patients.

Take a read for yourself – the data are fascinating!
https://lnkd.in/d9AjgeEY

Nice work Joe YEONG 杨宝诚 et al. – it’s always a pleasure to work with you!

Publication success!

Did you know that the kinase MST1 is involved in endothelial dysfunction and atherosclerosis following disturbed blood flow in arterial regions?

Ai Ding and colleagues at Tianjin Medical University delved into this role of MST1 in their latest study published in Circulation Research (American Heart Association).

They showed that preserving MST1 kinase activity has an athero-protective effect that is achieved, in part, via MST1-mediated connexin Cx43 phosphorylation in endothelial cells.

The researchers speculate that as MST1 phosphorylation is restrained in response to the stress induced by disturbed blood flow, therapeutics designed around this new axis might prevent atherosclerotic plaques!

Find out more for yourself, here: https://lnkd.in/dX-zi6bp

Well done to all those who contributed to this research – Insight Editing London’s Ilya Demchenko really enjoyed working on this paper with you!

Publication success!

Despite life for many returning to something a little more “normal” since the Covid-19 pandemic took hold in 2019, the number of cancer patients with covid comorbidity continues to rise. Management strategies for these affected patients are urgently needed.

Now, Maichan Lau, Joe YEONG 杨宝诚 and colleagues at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore General Hospital, Cancer Science Institute of Singapore and the National Cancer Centre Singapore, have reported their initial findings on how SARS-CoV-2 infection might impact on cancer patients and their treatment.

Leveraging a spatial whole-transcriptomics analysis approach, the researchers found that SARS-CoV-2 infection might induce a persistent, immunological memory that could offer tissue-level protection against reinfection and perhaps even modulate the tumour microenvironment to favour immune checkpoint blockade responses!

Find out more in their paper published earlier this year in Frontiers in Immunology:
https://lnkd.in/dKvw3HV5

Congratulations to this great team based in Singapore for this highly relevant and impactful work!

New publication!

Delia Grace and colleagues have proposed a new framework to optimise the potential of working equids (e.g. horses, donkeys, mules and hinnies) to small farms in low- and middle-income countries.

Their framework – published in PLOS ONE in September – derives from the results of an extensive literature review and survey of working equids welfare experts. In their paper, you can learn more about the varied roles of working equids and the ongoing barriers to optimizing their contributions to sustainable development goals. Check out the full text here: https://lnkd.in/dJbsKnp8

Well done to all those who contributed to this important work, and thank you for involving Insight Editing London editor Daniel Ackerman during your manuscript preparation!

New review article!

Did you know that chronic stress is a risk factor for developing psychiatric conditions?

If this is news to you, then you might like to check out this review article published in Neurology – Neuroimmunology & Neuroinflammation earlier this year: https://lnkd.in/dAuWvwQa

Here, Eva Schramm and Ari Waisman will guide you through the axis linking chronic stress with immune system activation. They neatly explain how chronic stress can activate and then alter the phenotype and function of microglia in defined brain regions. By the end, you should see how, given their strategic location within the central nervous system, microglia are important mediators of psychopathologies.

Congratulations to Eva and Ari for compiling this intriguing review – we were delighted to take a sneak peek before submission!

Mesenchymal stromal cells secrete immunosuppressive factors that could have great therapeutic potential. For this reason, they are being tested as a supportive treatment for graft versus host disease (GvHD). But how do these cells respond during fungal infection – a major cause of mortality in patients with GvHD? The latest paper from the Jan Fric lab at St. Anne’s University Hospital Brno, has some answers!

In their study – “NFAT signalling in human mesenchymal stromal cells affects extracellular matrix remodelling and anti-fungal immune responses”  – Tidu et al. show that mesenchymal stromal cells engage the NFAT pathway in response to fungal infection, thus impacting extracellular matrix composition and immune cell functions.

To find out more, download the full text article from iScience today: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2021.102683.

Many congratulations to all the researchers involved in this interesting story!