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Objective:To investigate the expression of IL-18, IL-18-binding protein a(IL-18BPa) and IL-18 receptor α(IL-18Rα) by peripheral blood CD4 + Th17 cells of patients with allergic rhinitis (AR) and the effects of allergens on their expression. Methods:This study enrolled 45 outpatients with AR and 23 healthy control subjects receiving physical examination in the First Affiliated Hospital of Jinzhou Medical University from October 2019 to September 2020. According to the results of skin prick test, the 45 patients were divided into two groups: AR group with positive results (24 cases) and nAR group with negative results (21 cases). Blood samples of them were collected. Flow cytometry was used to analyze the effects of allergens on the expression of IL-18, IL-18BPa and IL-18Rα at protein level by peripheral blood CD4 + Th17 cells. The level of IL-17A in plasma was measured by Bioplex system, and its correlation with the percentage of IL-18 + Th17 cells was analyzed. Results:Compared with the healthy control group, the AR group showed increased ratios of CD4 + Th17 and IL-18 + Th17 cells ( P<0.01), decreased ratio of IL-18BPa + Th17 cells ( P<0.01), enhanced mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) of IL-18BPa ( P<0.01) and reduced MFI of IL-18Rα ( P<0.01); the nAR group showed enhanced MFI of IL-18BPa ( P<0.000 1) and reduced MFI of IL-18Rα ( P<0.000 1). The ratio of IL-18 + Th17 cells and the MFI of IL-18Rα in the AR group were higher than those in the nAR group ( P<0.05, P<0.01). House dust mite extract and Platanus pollen extract induced the expression of IL-18 and IL-18BPa by CD4 + Th17 cells of AR patients ( P<0.05). Moreover, house dust mite extract directly induced the CD4 + Th17 cells isolated from the healthy control subjects to express IL-18 and IL-18R ( P<0.05). Compared with healthy control subjects, AR patients had higher level of IL-17A in plasma and it was moderately correlated with the ratio of IL-18 + Th17 cells ( P<0.05). Conclusions:Allergens may be involved in the pathogenesis of AR by inducing blood CD4 + Th17 cells to express IL-18 and IL-18Rα.
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BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has imposed a large, initially uncontrollable, public health crisis both in the US and across the world, with experts looking to vaccines as the ultimate mechanism of defense. The development and deployment of COVID-19 vaccines have been rapidly advancing via global efforts. Hence, it is crucial for governments, public health officials, and policy makers to understand public attitudes and opinions towards vaccines, such that effective interventions and educational campaigns can be designed to promote vaccine acceptance. ObjectiveThe aim of this study is to investigate public opinion and perception on COVID-19 vaccines by investigating the spatiotemporal trends of their sentiment and emotion towards vaccines, as well as how such trends relate to popular topics on Twitter in the US. MethodsWe collected over 300,000 geotagged tweets in the US from March 1, 2020 to February 28, 2021. We examined the spatiotemporal patterns of public sentiment and emotion over time at both national and state scales and identified three phases along the pandemic timeline with the significant changes of public sentiment and emotion, further linking to eleven key events and major topics as the potential drivers to induce such changes via cloud mapping of keywords and topic modelling. ResultsAn increasing trend of positive sentiment in parallel with the decrease of negative sentiment are generally observed in most states, reflecting the rising confidence and anticipation of the public towards vaccines. The overall tendency of the eight types of emotion implies the trustiness and anticipation of the public to vaccination, accompanied by the mixture of fear, sadness and anger. Critical social/international events and/or the announcements of political leaders and authorities may have potential impacts on the public opinion on vaccines. These factors, along with important topics and manual reading of popular posts on eleven key events, help identify underlying themes and validate insights from the analysis. ConclusionsThe analyses of near real-time social media big data benefit public health authorities by enabling them to monitor public attitudes and opinions towards vaccine-related information in a geo-aware manner, address the concerns of vaccine skeptics and promote the confidence of individuals within a certain region or community, towards vaccines.
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Without a widely distributed vaccine, controlling human mobility has been identified and promoted as the primary strategy to mitigate the transmission of COVID-19. Many studies have reported the relationship between human mobility and COVID-19 transmission by utilizing the spatial-temporal information of mobility data from various sources. To better understand the role of human mobility in the pandemic, we conducted a systematic review of articles that measure the relationship between human mobility and COVID-19 in terms of their data sources, statistical models, and key findings. Following the guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement, we selected 47 articles from Web of Science Core Collection up to September 2020. Restricting human mobility reduced the transmission of COVID-19 spatially, although the effectiveness and stringency of policy implementation vary temporally and spatially across different stages of the pandemic. We call for prompt and sustainable measures to control the pandemic. We also recommend researchers 1) to enhance multi-disciplinary collaboration; 2) to adjust the implementation and stringency of mobility-control policies in corresponding to the rapid change of the pandemic; 3) to improve statistical models used in analyzing, simulating, and predicting the transmission of the disease; and 4) to enrich the source of mobility data to ensure data accuracy and suability.