Cross-species transmission of viruses from wildlife animal reservoirs poses a marked threat to human and animal health . Bats have been recognized as one of the most important reservoirs for emerging viruses and the transmission of a coronavirus that originated in bats to humans via intermediate hosts was responsible for the high-impact emerging zoonosis, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) . Here we provide virological, epidemiological, evolutionary and experimental evidence that a novel HKU2-related bat coronavirus, swine acute diarrhoea syndrome coronavirus (SADS-CoV), is the aetiological agent that was responsible for a large-scale outbreak of fatal disease in pigs in China that has caused the death of 24,693 piglets across four farms. Notably, the outbreak began in Guangdong province in the vicinity of the origin of the SARS pandemic. Furthermore, we identified SADS-related CoVs with 96-98% sequence identity in 9.8% (58 out of 591) of anal swabs collected from bats in Guangdong province during 2013-2016, predominantly in horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus spp.) that are known reservoirs of SARS-related CoVs. We found that there were striking similarities between the SADS and SARS outbreaks in geographical, temporal, ecological and aetiological settings. This study highlights the importance of identifying coronavirus diversity and distribution in bats to mitigate future outbreaks that could threaten livestock, public health and economic growth.

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Evidence is mounting that the gut-brain axis plays an important role in mental diseases fueling mechanistic investigations to provide a basis for future targeted interventions. However, shotgun metagenomic data from treatment-naïve patients are scarce hampering comprehensive analyses of the complex interaction between the gut microbiota and the brain. Here we explore the fecal microbiome based on 90 medication-free schizophrenia patients and 81 controls and identify a microbial species classifier distinguishing patients from controls with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.896, and replicate the microbiome-based disease classifier in 45 patients and 45 controls (AUC = 0.765). Functional potentials associated with schizophrenia include differences in short-chain fatty acids synthesis, tryptophan metabolism, and synthesis/degradation of neurotransmitters. Transplantation of a schizophrenia-enriched bacterium, Streptococcus vestibularis, appear to induces deficits in social behaviors, and alters neurotransmitter levels in peripheral tissues in recipient mice. Our findings provide new leads for further investigations in cohort studies and animal models.

Background: The recent outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been rapidly spreading on a global scale and poses a great threat to human health. Acute respiratory distress syndrome, characterized by a rapid onset of generalized inflammation, is the leading cause of mortality in patients with COVID-19. We thus aimed to explore the effect of risk factors on the severity of the disease, focusing on immune-inflammatory parameters, which represent the immune status of patients. Methods: A comprehensive systematic search for relevant studies published up to April 2020 was performed by using the PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, and China National Knowledge Internet (CNKI) databases. After extracting all available data of immune-inflammatory indicators, we statistically analyzed the risk factors of severe and non-severe COVID-19 patients with a meta-analysis. Results: A total of 4,911 patients from 29 studies were included in the final meta-analysis. The results demonstrated that severe patients tend to present with increased white blood cell (WBC) and neutrophil counts, neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), procalcitonin (PCT), C-reaction protein (CRP), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and Interleukin-6 (IL-6) and a decreased number of total lymphocyte and lymphocyte subtypes, such as CD4+ T lymphocyte and CD8+ T lymphocyte, compared to the non-severe patients. In addition, the WBC count>10 × 10 9 /L, lymphocyte count<1 × 10 9 /L, PCT>0.5 ng/mL, and CRP>10 mg/L were risk factors for disease progression in patients with COVID-19 (WBC count>10 × 10 9 /L: OR = 2.92, 95% CI: 1.96-4.35; lymphocyte count<1 × 10 9 /L: OR = 4.97, 95% CI: 3.53-6.99; PCT>0.5 ng/mL: OR = 6.33, 95% CI: 3.97-10.10; CRP>10 mg/L: OR = 3.51, 95% CI: 2.38-5.16). Furthermore, we found that NLR, as a novel marker of systemic inflammatory response, can also help predict clinical severity in patients with COVID-19 (OR = 2.50, 95% CI: 2.04-3.06). Conclusions: Immune-inflammatory parameters, such as WBC, lymphocyte, PCT, CRP, and NLR, could imply the progression of COVID-19. NLR has taken both the levels Feng et al. Immune-Inflammatory Parameters in COVID-19 of neutrophil and lymphocyte into account, indicating a more complete, accurate, and reliable inspection efficiency; surveillance of NLR may help clinicians identify high-risk COVID-19 patients at an early stage.