1.Screening strategies for quorum sensing inhibitors in combating bacterial infections
Lan LU ; Mingxing LI ; Guojuan YI ; Li LIAO ; Qiang CHENG ; Jie ZHU ; Bin ZHANG ; Yingying WANG ; Yong CHEN ; Ming ZENG
Journal of Pharmaceutical Analysis 2022;12(1):1-14
Interference with quorum sensing(QS)represents an antivirulence strategy with a significant promise for the treatment of bacterial infections and a new approach to restoring antibiotic tolerance.Over the past two decades,a novel series of studies have reported that quorum quenching approaches and the discovery of quorum sensing inhibitors(QSIs)have a strong impact on the discovery of anti-infective drugs against various types of bacteria.The discovery of QSI was demonstrated to be an appropriate strategy to expand the anti-infective therapeutic approaches to complement classical antibiotics and antimicrobial agents.For the discovery of QSIs,diverse approaches exist and develop in-step with the scale of screening as well as specific QS systems.This review highlights the latest findings in strategies and methodologies for QSI screening,involving activity-based screening with bioassays,chemical methods to seek bacterial QS pathways for QSI discovery,virtual screening for QSI screening,and other potential tools for interpreting QS signaling,which are innovative routes for future efforts to discover additional QSIs to combat bacterial infections.
2.An investigation on the role of emergency departments in combatting against COVID-19 in Zhejiang Province
Zhongjun ZHENG ; Lin SHI ; Yi WANG ; Yuxi CHEN ; Hequn HE ; Mingwei HUANG ; Wenyang JIN ; Hong LIU ; Bingheng LOU ; Xiaohong WEN ; Guojuan DING ; Weizhong CAO ; Hua LIN ; Wen ZHOU ; Mao ZHANG
Chinese Journal of Emergency Medicine 2020;29(9):1196-1202
Objective:To investigate the relevant situation of the emergency departments (ED) of general hospitals at all levels in Zhejiang Province participating in the prevention and control of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), and to provide a reference for further improving the capacity of emergency services.Methods:A multi-center cross-sectional investigation study was jointly initiated by the Zhejiang Provincial Emergency Medicine Quality Control Center, the Emergency Medicine Branch of Zhejiang Medical Association, and the Emergency Physicians Branch of Zhejiang Medical Doctors Association. Before investigation, experts were organized to develop a special questionnaire. Then the ED of general people's hospitals or Chinese Medicine hospitals at the county/district-level or above were included and their participations in the prevention and control of COVID-19 epidemic between March 9, 2020 and March 15, 2020 were investigated. The collected information included: basic information of the hospitals; participation of ED in fever clinics; the number of COVID-19 patients admitted to ED; the situation of ED support to the anti-epidemic front-line; and the epidemic prevention facilities of ED, and the early supply of medical protective equipments.Results:A total of 181 hospitals from 11 prefectures and cities across the province were finally included, including 52 (28.7%) Grade-A tertiary hospitals, 45 (24.9%) Grade-B tertiary hospitals, 64(35.4%) Grade-A secondary hospitals, and 20 (11.0%) Grade-B secondary or lower hospitals. Among them, 93 (51.4%) were COVID-19 designated hospitals, and 49 (27.1%) had the ability to detect COVID-19 nucleic acid; 177 (97.8%) set up independent fever clinics and 33 (18.6%) were managed by ED alone or mainly. The medical staffs of 65 (36.7%) fever clinics were all or mainly from ED. A total of 213 cases of COVID-19 were received/treated in 40.3% ED, accounting for 17.3% of the total number of cases in Zhejiang Province. A total of 3 848 doctors and nurses supported the front-line of epidemic prevention, of them, 253 supported Hubei Province (accounting for 12.5% ??of the total number). There were 68.5% and 76.8% ED having spare separate clinic and ordinary rescue single room to deal with the COVID-19. In addition, at the early days of anti-epidemic, more than 50% ED were in short supply or even had no medical protective equipment.Conclusions:The ED of Zhejiang Province plays an important role and has made a great contribution to the prevention and control of the COVID-19 epidemic. It is necessary to improve the conditions of ED to effectively respond to the prevention and control of daily infectious diseases.