Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection has become a clinical threat to healthy people as well as immunocompromised patients and those with pre-existing chronic diseases around the world. This study, which used a cross-sectional correlational design, aimed to assess the levels of fear and health anxiety and to investigate their predictors during the current outbreak of COVID-19 in immunocompromised and chronic disease patients in Saudi Arabia. Sociodemographic and clinical data, fear of COVID-19, and health anxiety measurements were collected by online surveys from June 15 to July 15, 2020. Univariate and multiple linear regression analysis was used to identify predictors. A total of 1,030 patients in 13 provinces in Saudi Arabia completed the questionnaire. A significant number of patients with chronic diseases experienced considerable levels of fear and anxiety during the COVID-19 outbreak. It was found that 21.44% of participants met the criteria for anxiety cases, and 19.4% were considered borderline anxiety cases. In regression analysis, significant predictors of fear and health anxiety were female gender, lower education, middle-aged, divorced or widowed, receiving immunosuppressants, type of chronic disease (Crohn’s disease, hypertension, and cardiovascular diseases), and media use as a source of knowledge about COVID-19. Immunocompromised and chronic disease patients are vulnerable to fear and anxiety during epidemic infectious diseases such as COVID-19. Optimizing this population’s compliance with appropriate infection prevention and control strategies is crucial during the infectious outbreaks to ensure their safety, to decrease the risk of infection and serious complications, and reduce their fear and health anxiety. Effective positive psychological interventions and support strategies also need to be immediately implemented to increase psychological resilience and improve the mental health of these patients. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, chronic disease patients in Saudi Arabia need special attention from health authorities, policymakers, and healthcare professionals to manage maladaptive forms of health anxiety and fear.

Background: CO-releasing molecules (CO-RMs) are used to study biological interactions with this toxic gas. Results: CORM-3 inhibits the NO detoxification activity of the E. coli flavohemoglobin Hmp in vivo but not in vitro. Conclusion: CO-RMs must be used with regard to their chemistry in biological studies. Significance: CORM-3 is a useful tool to study concerted effects of NO and CO in vivo.

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Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is a Gram-positive bacteria considered one of the leading causes of community and hospital-acquired illnesses or public health concerns. Antibiotic resistance in this microorganism is one of the greatest issues in global health care. The use of metal nanoparticles and their oxides is one of the potential approaches to combating bacteria resistance to antibiotics. The antibacterial properties of ZnO NPs against enterotoxigenic S. aureus were studied. ZnO NPs were tested in vitro by agar diffusion test. They resulted in 26 and 22 mm zones of inhibition for a size of 20 nm and a concentration of 20 mM against 105 and 107 CFU/mL S. aureus, respectively. The MIC of ZnO NPs of various sizes, 20 and 50 nm, with 105 CFU/mL was 2.5 and 5 mM, respectively. MIC with 107 CFU/mL was five mM for 20 and 50 nm ZnO NPs. Further, the highest growth reduction percentage, 98.99% in the counts of S. aureus was achieved by ZnO NPs of size 20 nm and concentration of 10 mM. Moreover, the obtained ELISA results indicated a significantly decreased concentration of enterotoxin A with all concentrations and sizes of ZnO NPs. PCR analysis showed a significant effect on sea gene in response to ZnO NPs treatments leading to loss of the gene, unlike the unaffected nuc gene. Moreover, morphological changes and cell shape distortion were detected by scanning electron microscope for bacterial cells treated with ZnO NPs.

Probiotics have attracted considerable attention because of their ability to ameliorate disease and prevent cancer. In this study, we examined the immunomodulatory effects of a Streptococcus thermophilus probiotic on the intestinal mucosa azoxymethane-induced colon cancer. Sixty female mice were divided into four groups (n = 15 each). One group of untreated mice was used as a control (C group). Another mouse group was injected with azoxymethane once weekly for 8 weeks to induce colon cancer (CC group). Finally, two groups of mice were continuously treated twice per week from week 2 to 16 with either the Lactobacillus plantarum (Lac CC group) or S. thermophilus (Strep CC group) bacterial strain pre-and post-treatment as performed for the CC group. Remarkably, Tlr2 , Ifng , Il4 , Il13 , Il10 , and Tp53 transcription were significantly downregulated in the Strep CC intestinal mucosa group. Additionally, IL2 expression was decreased significantly in the Strep CC mouse serum, whereas TNFα was remarkably elevated compared to that in the CC, Lac CC, and untreated groups. This study suggested that Streptococcus thermophilus did not interrupt or hinder colon cancer development in mice when administered as a prophylactic.

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Wheat is the most important cereal crop in the world as compared to other grain crops in terms of acreage and productivity. Based on next-generation sequencing data, we sequenced and assembled chloroplastid (cp) genomes of nine Egyptian wheat cultivars in which eight of them are hexaploid (Triticum sp, 2n=6x) and one is tetraploid (T. turgidum subsp. durum, 2n=4x). Sequencing reads were first filtered in which all sequencing reads that mapped to mitochondrial (mt) genome were removed. Preliminary results indicated no intra-cultivar heteroplasmy for the different cultivars. Size of the resulted chloroplast wheat genome across different cultivars is 133,812 bp, which is less than the cp genome of “Chinese Spring” cultivar partially due to the presence of three large sequences in the later genome belonging to rice cp genome. Three new non-coding tRNA gene sequences were also found and function of one conserved ORF namely ycf5 is shown. The protein-coding genes represent 67.26% of the total plastid genes. In the non-coding regions, a number of 5 tandem and 31 long repeats were found. Codon usage in the wheat cp genome has the same trend as that published for wheat mitochondrial genome. Assembled cp genomes after filtering out the gaps (≥ 5 bp) generated in the nine cultivars were also used for SNPs and INDELs analyses. Across different cultivars, 564 SNPs and 160 INDELs were identified, of which 230 and 4 were in the protein-coding regions, respectively. Five and nine cultivar-specific SNPs and INDELs were found, respectively. One SNP, while none for INDELs, was found in the genic regions unique to one of the two inverted repeats (IRa) in the coding sequence of ndhB gene. Two SNPs were non-synonymous substitutions in the two protein-coding genes rpoA and rpl16, while one was synonymous substitution in the protein coding gene rpl23. Three INDELs exist in rpl2 gene. The first is 12-nucleotide that starts at nucleotide 4 of the gene and encodes for four amino acids. Two other INDELs starts from nucleotide 160 of the gene and are 19-nt apart. These two INDELs resulted in a frameshift of six amino acids, with a glycine amino acid in the middle that remained unchanged, then the default frame was restored. Results of dendrogram aligned with known relationships among cultivars. In conclusion, SNPs and INDELs analyses of wheat plastome were successfully used for detecting polymorphism among wheat cultivars.

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