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Sars-Cov-2 Omicron Ba.1 Variant Infection Of Human Colon Epithelial Cells, Avan Antia, David M Alvarado, Qiru Zeng, Luis A Casorla-Perez, Deanna L Davis, Naomi M Sonnek, Matthew A Ciorba, Siyuan Ding

2020-Current year OA Pubs

The Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, characterized by multiple subvariants including BA.1, XBB.1.5, EG.5, and JN.1, became the predominant strain in early 2022. Studies indicate that Omicron replicates less efficiently in lung tissue compared to the ancestral strain. However, the infectivity of Omicron in the gastrointestinal tract is not fully defined, despite the fact that 70% of COVID-19 patients experience digestive disease symptoms. Here, using primary human colonoids, we found that, regardless of individual variability, Omicron infects colon cells similarly or less effectively than the ancestral strain or the Delta variant. The variant induced limited type III interferon expression and showed …

Medicaid Eligibility Loss Among Dual-Eligible Beneficiaries Before And During Covid-19 Public Health Emergency, Yanlei Ma, Eric T Roberts, Kenton J Johnston, E John Orav, Jose F Figueroa

2020-Current year OA Pubs

IMPORTANCE: Medicaid coverage loss can substantially compromise access to and affordability of health care for dual-eligible beneficiaries. The extent to which this population lost Medicaid coverage before and during the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) and the characteristics of beneficiaries more at risk for coverage loss are currently not well known.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the loss of Medicaid coverage among dual-eligible beneficiaries before and during the first year of the PHE, and to examine beneficiary-level and plan-level factors associated with heightened likelihood of losing Medicaid.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This repeated cross-sectional study used national Medicare data to estimate annual …

Abatacept Pharmacokinetics And Exposure Response In Patients Hospitalized With Covid-19: A Secondary Analysis Of The Activ-1 Im Randomized Clinical Trial, Stephen J Balevic, Daniel K Benjamin, William G Powderly, P Brian Smith, Daniel Gonzalez, Matthew W Mccarthy, Linda K Shaw, Christopher J Lindsell, Sam Bozzette, Daphne Williams, Benjamin P Linas, John Blamoun, Heta Javeri, Christoph P Hornik, Activ-1 Im Study Group

2020-Current year OA Pubs

IMPORTANCE: The pharmacokinetics of abatacept and the association between abatacept exposure and outcomes in patients with severe COVID-19 are unknown.

OBJECTIVE: To characterize abatacept pharmacokinetics, relate drug exposure with clinical outcomes, and evaluate the need for dosage adjustments.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This study is a secondary analysis of data from the ACTIV-1 (Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines) Immune Modulator (IM) randomized clinical trial conducted between October 16, 2020, and December 31, 2021. The trial included hospitalized adults who received abatacept in addition to standard of care for treatment of COVID-19 pneumonia. Data analysis was performed between September 2022 …

Severity Of Respiratory Syncytial Virus Vs Covid-19 And Influenza Among Hospitalized Us Adults, Diya Surie, Jennie H Kwon, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

IMPORTANCE: On June 21, 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended the first respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines for adults aged 60 years and older using shared clinical decision-making. Understanding the severity of RSV disease in adults can help guide this clinical decision-making.

OBJECTIVE: To describe disease severity among adults hospitalized with RSV and compare it with the severity of COVID-19 and influenza disease by vaccination status.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: In this cohort study, adults aged 18 years and older admitted to the hospital with acute respiratory illness and laboratory-confirmed RSV, SARS-CoV-2, or influenza infection were prospectively …

The Disordered N-Terminal Tail Of Sars-Cov-2 Nucleocapsid Protein Forms A Dynamic Complex With Rna, Jasmine Cubuk, Jhullian J Alston, J Jeremías Incicco, Alex S Holehouse, Kathleen B Hall, Melissa D Stuchell-Brereton, Andrea Soranno

2020-Current year OA Pubs

The SARS-CoV-2 Nucleocapsid (N) protein is responsible for condensation of the viral genome. Characterizing the mechanisms controlling nucleic acid binding is a key step in understanding how condensation is realized. Here, we focus on the role of the RNA binding domain (RBD) and its flanking disordered N-terminal domain (NTD) tail, using single-molecule Förster Resonance Energy Transfer and coarse-grained simulations. We quantified contact site size and binding affinity for nucleic acids and concomitant conformational changes occurring in the disordered region. We found that the disordered NTD increases the affinity of the RBD for RNA by about 50-fold. Binding of both nonspecific …

Reports Of Covid-19 Vaccine Adverse Events In Predominantly Republican Vs Democratic States, David A Asch, Chongliang Luo, Yong Chen

2020-Current year OA Pubs

IMPORTANCE: Antivaccine sentiment is increasingly associated with conservative political positions. Republican-inclined states exhibit lower COVID-19 vaccination rates, but the association between political inclination and reported vaccine adverse events (AEs) is unexplored.

OBJECTIVE: To assess whether there is an association between state political inclination and the reporting rates of COVID-19 vaccine AEs.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This cross-sectional study used the AE reports after COVID-19 vaccination from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database from 2020 to 2022, with reports after influenza vaccines from 2019 to 2022 used as a reference. These reports were examined against state-level percentage of Republican …

Mucosal Vaccine-Induced Cross-Reactive Cd8+ T Cells Protect Against Sars-Cov-2 Xbb.1.5 Respiratory Tract Infection, Baoling Ying, Tamarand L Darling, Pritesh Desai, Chieh-Yu Liang, Igor P Dmitriev, Nadia Soudani, Traci Bricker, Elena A Kashentseva, Houda Harastani, Saravanan Raju, Meizi Liu, Aaron G Schmidt, David T Curiel, Adrianus C M Boon, Michael S Diamond

2020-Current year OA Pubs

A nasally delivered chimpanzee adenoviral-vectored severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccine (ChAd-SARS-CoV-2-S) is currently used in India (iNCOVACC). Here, we update this vaccine by creating ChAd-SARS-CoV-2-BA.5-S, which encodes a prefusion-stabilized BA.5 spike protein. Whereas serum neutralizing antibody responses induced by monovalent or bivalent adenoviral vaccines were poor against the antigenically distant XBB.1.5 strain and insufficient to protect in passive transfer experiments, mucosal antibody and cross-reactive memory T cell responses were robust, and protection was evident against WA1/2020 D614G and Omicron variants BQ.1.1 and XBB.1.5 in mice and hamsters. However, depletion of memory CD8

Description Of Cryptococcosis Following Sars-Cov-2 Infection: A Disease Survey Through The Mycosis Study Group Education And Research Consortium (Msg-19), Jeremey Walker, Andrej Spec, Adriana M Rauseo, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: Invasive fungal infections have been described throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Cryptococcal disease after infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been reported in several isolated case reports and 1 larger case series. We sought to describe cryptococcal infections following SARS-CoV-2 through establishing a database to investigate underlying risk factors, disease manifestations, and outcomes.

METHODS: We created a crowdsourced call for cases solicited through the Mycoses Study Group Education and Research Consortium, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Emerging Infectious Diseases Network, and infectious diseases Twitter groups. Data were collected in a web-based and secure REDCap …

Immunoglobulin Replacement Products Protect Against Sars-Cov-2 Infection In Vivo Despite Poor Neutralizing Activity, Ofer Zimmerman, Alexa Michelle Altman Doss, Baoling Ying, Chieh-Yu Liang, Samantha R. Mackin, Hannah G. Davis-Adams, Lucas J. Adams, Laura A. Vanblargan, Rita E. Chen, Suzanne M. Scheaffer, Pritesh Desai, Saravanan Raju, Tarisa L. Mantia, Caitlin C. O'Shaughnessy, Jennifer Marie Monroy, H. James Wedner, Christopher J. Rigell, Andrew L. Kau, Tiffany Biason Dy, Zhen Ren, Jackson S. Turner, Jane A. O'Halloran, Rachel M. Presti, Peggy L. Kendall, Daved H. Fremont, Ali H. Ellebedy, Michael S Diamond

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Immunoglobulin (IG) replacement products are used routinely in patients with immune deficiency and other immune dysregulation disorders who have poor responses to vaccination and require passive immunity conferred by commercial antibody products. The binding, neutralizing, and protective activity of intravenously administered IG against SARS-CoV-2 emerging variants remains unknown. Here, we tested 198 different IG products manufactured from December 2019 to August 2022. We show that prepandemic IG had no appreciable cross-reactivity or neutralizing activity against SARS-CoV-2. Anti-spike antibody titers and neutralizing activity against SARS-CoV-2 WA1/2020 D614G increased gradually after the pandemic started and reached levels comparable to vaccinated healthy donors …

Immune Response To Sars-Cov-2 Variants After Immunization With Different Vaccines In Mexico, Erika Garay, Sean P J Whelan, Rebecca M Dubois, Sara M O'Rourke, Angel Eduardo Salgado-Escobar, José Esteban Muñoz-Medina, Carlos F Arias, Susana López

2020-Current year OA Pubs

There is limited information on the antibody responses against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in subjects from developing countries with populations having a high incidence of co-morbidities. Here, we analysed the immunogenicity of homologous schemes using the ChAdOx1-S, Sputnik V, or BNT162b2 vaccines and the effect of a booster dose with ChAdOx1-S in middle-aged adults who were seropositive or seronegative to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein before vaccination. The study was conducted post-vaccination with a follow-up of 4 months for antibody titre using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and pseudovirus (PV) neutralization assays (PNAs). All three vaccines elicited a superior …

Mucosal Boosting Enhances Vaccine Protection Against Sars-Cov-2 In Macaques, Katherine Mcmahan, Adrianus C M Boon, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

A limitation of current SARS-CoV-2 vaccines is that they provide minimal protection against infection with current Omicron subvariants

Serological Assays For Differentiating Natural Covid-19 Infection From Vaccine Induced Immunity, Samuel M S Cheng, Gaya K Amarasinghe, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: Natural SARS-CoV-2 infection may elicit antibodies to a range of viral proteins including non-structural protein ORF8. RNA, adenovirus vectored and sub-unit vaccines expressing SARS-CoV-2 spike would be only expected to elicit S-antibodies and antibodies to distinct domains of nucleocapsid (N) protein may reliably differentiate infection from vaccine-elicited antibody. However, inactivated whole virus vaccines may potentially elicit antibody to wider range of viral proteins, including N protein. We hypothesized that antibody to ORF8 protein will discriminate natural infection from vaccination irrespective of vaccine type.

METHODS: We optimized and validated the anti-ORF8 and anti-N C-terminal domain (NCTD) ELISA assays using sera …