Highlights Twelve air samples and 355 surface samples from a hospital were tested for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Only one air sample, which was obtained during an intubation procedure, tested positive. A low level of surface contamination was found, and most occurred on high-touch surfaces. No association was found between surface contamination and patient characteristics.

During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, there is an important risk of infection in health care workers, including oral health care workers (OHCWs), due to the characteristics of dental practice. In this retrospective study, data pertaining to the 31 OHCWs diagnosed with COVID-19 in Wuhan, Hubei Province, were retrieved and analyzed. Questionnaires were administered to the subjects over the Internet and telephone. Clinical and epidemiological characteristics and information on the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) were collected. There were 22 females and 9 males, with a median age of 39 y. Although the severity of most cases of COVID-19 (93.5%) was mild or moderate, 1 case was severe, and another case was critical, resulting in death. Fever was the main first symptom of COVID-19, followed by fatigue and myalgia. Most of the OHCWs routinely used PPE such as medical masks, gloves, caps, and work clothes while performing clinical work. N95 or KN95 masks were rarely available because of the scarcity of PPE during the outbreak. Nineteen OHCWs reported a contact history, among whom 7 worked in a fever clinic, 5 reported contact with dental patients suspected of having COVID-19, and 7 reported contact with family members with COVID-19–related symptoms at least 1 d earlier. Our findings indicated that there were few clusters of COVID-19 in dental settings. Since the outbreak, the Hospital of Stomatology, Wuhan University, has provided emergency dental treatment, and none of their staff were infected while providing dental service, which indicates that comprehensive measures such as the use of advanced PPE and environmental disinfection can prevent cross-infection in dental practice. The analysis of the procedures followed during the emergency treatments indicated that OHCWs preferred to recommend conservative treatment to patients, suggesting that attention should be paid to the psychological impact of COVID-19 on dental practitioners.

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Background: Heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoproteins (hnRNPs), a large family of RNA-binding proteins, have been implicated in tumor progression in multiple cancer types. However, the expression pattern and prognostic value of hnRNPs in five types of gastrointestinal (GI) cancers including gastric cancer, colorectal cancer, esophageal cancer, liver cancer and pancreatic cancer remain to be investigated. Objective: The current research aimed to identify prognostic biomarkers of hnRNP family in five major types of gastrointestinal cancer. Methods: Oncomine, Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA) and Kaplan-Meier Plotter were used to explore the hnRNPs expression levels with relation to clinicopathological parameters and prognostic values. The protein level of hnRNPU was validated by immunohistochemistry (IHC) in human tissue specimens. Genetic alterations of hnRNPs were analyzed using cBioportal, and Gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analyses were employed to illustrate the biological functions of co-expressed genes of hnRNPs. Results: The vast majority of hnRNPs were highly expressed in five types of GI cancer tissues compared to their adjacent normal tissues, and mRNA levels of hnRNPA2B1, D, Q, R and U were significantly different in various GI cancer types at different stages. In addition, Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that the increased hnRNPs expression levels were correlated with better prognosis in gastric and rectal cancer patients (logrank p < 0.05). In contrast, patients with high levels of hnRNPs exhibited a worse prognosis in esophageal and liver cancer (logrank p < 0.05). Using Immunohistochemistry, we further confirmed that hnRNPU was over-expressed in gastric, rectal, and liver cancers. In addition, hnRNPs gene were altered in patients with GI cancers, and RNA related processing was correlated with hnRNPs alterations. Conclusion: We identified differentially expressed genes of hnRNPs in tumor tissues versus adjacent normal tissues, which might contribute to predicting tumor types, early diagnosis and targeted therapies in five major types of GI cancer.

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Introduction: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the most prevalent malignancy of the pancreas, and the incidence of this disease is approximately equivalent to the mortality rate. Immunotherapy has made a remarkable breakthrough in numerous cancers, while its efficacy in PDAC remains limited due to the immunosuppressive microenvironment. Immunotherapy efficacy is highly correlated with the abundance of immune cells, particularly cytotoxic T cells. Therefore, molecular classifier is needed to identify relatively hot tumors that may benefit from immunotherapy. Method: In this study, we carried out a transcriptome analysis of 145 pancreatic tumors to define the underlying immune regulatory mechanism driving the PDAC immunosuppressive microenvironment. The immune subtype was identified by consensus clustering, and the underlying PDAC immune activation mechanism was thoroughly examined using single sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA). Area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to assess the accuracy of the molecular classifier in differentiating immunological subgroups of PDAC.5 Result: The protein level of molecular classifier was verified by immunohistochemistry in human PDAC tissue. Immune-hot tumors displayed higher levels of immune cell infiltration and immune checkpoint, in line with enriched immune escape pathways. Hematopoietic cell signal transducer (HCST), a molecular classifier used to differentiate immunological subtypes of PDAC, has shown a substantial link with the expression levels of cytotoxic markers, such as CD8A and CD8B. At the single cell level, we found that HCST was predominantly expressed in CD8T cells. By immunohistochemistry and survival analysis, we further demonstrated the prognostic value of HCST in PDAC. Conclusion: We identified HCST as a molecular classifier to distinguish PDAC immune subtypes, which may be useful for early diagnosis and targeted therapy of PDAC.