Research Highlights

New research has shed light on how paddy field rice farming rapidly expanded along Asia’s coastline 2,000–3,000 years ago after freshwater conditions improved, according to an international team of earth sciences researchers that includes a University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa archaeology professor. The findings were featured in an article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

“Rice is the foundation of Asian civilizations, and our study reveals a remarkable relationship involving late Holocene coastal evolution and the rise of rice agriculture across coastal Asia,” said Professor Barry V. Rolett in the College of Social Sciences. “This model helps explain ancient DNA evidence suggesting a major Bronze Age demographic expansion of rice farmers of northern East Asian descent.”

Although rice history is well documented in the lower Yangtze homeland area, the early southward expansion of paddy rice farming was poorly known. The study investigated the process using a compilation of paleoenvironmental proxies from coastal sediment cores from Southeast China to Thailand and other areas of Southeast Asia.

Rolett explained that the emergence of coastal plains under enhanced freshwater conditions created expansive areas suitable for rice. As a result, over the past three millennia, the extent of coastal land suitable for wetland rice cultivation grew from about 16,000 to 96,000 square kilometers, or 9,941 to 59,651 square miles.

Read the full story from University of Hawi’i here.

University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers, led by Shahid Mukhtar, Ph.D., associate professor of biology in the UAB College of Arts and Sciences, have now built an interactome that includes the lung-epithelial cell host interactome integrated with a SARS-CoV-2 interactome. Applying network biology analysis tools to this human/SARS-CoV-2 interactome has revealed potential molecular mechanisms of pathogenesis for SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. The UAB research, published in the journal iScience, identified 33 high-value SARS-CoV-2 therapeutic targets, which are possibly involved in viral entry, proliferation and survival to establish infection and facilitate disease progression. These molecular insights may foster effective therapies, using combinations of existing drugs, for patients with COVID-19.

So far in 2019, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has killed nearly 1 million people worldwide and 200,000 in the United States.

The UAB researchers took many steps to generate the Calu-3-specific human-SARS-CoV-2 interactome, or CSI, that was the starting point for their network biology analyses.

They began from a comprehensive human interactome of experimentally validated protein-protein interactions, posted online in 2015, and then manually curated other protein-protein interactions from four subsequent interactome studies. The resulting human interactome contained 18,906 nodes and 444,633 “edges” — the term for the links between protein nodes.

Read the full story from University of Alabama at Birmingham here.

After nearly 15 years on an upward trend, awareness among Americans about high blood pressure and how to control and treat it is now on the decline, according to a new study. Even with the help of blood pressure medications, some groups, including older adults, are less likely than they were in earlier years to adequately control their blood pressure, the research found.

The study, funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health, appears online on Sept. 9 in JAMA. The authors say the trend could make longstanding efforts to fight heart disease and stroke—leading causes of death in the United States—even more challenging. High blood pressure, also called hypertension, is a major risk factor for heart disease. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 108 million Americans have hypertension, with a blood pressure reading of 130/80 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) or higher or are taking medication for their blood pressure, but only 27 million are considered to have their blood pressure under control, despite it being a condition that can be managed.

“Reversing this decline is important because we don’t want to lose public health achievements built over prior decades,” said Lawrence Fine, M.D., chief of the Clinical Applications and Prevention Branch at NHLBI and a study co-author. “It is a challenge for the scientific community to investigate the causes of this unexpected downward trend, but developing more effective strategies to reverse and substantially improve blood pressure control is critical for the health of many Americans.”

The study included 18,262 U.S. adults age 18 and older, with high blood pressure. The definition of hypertension at the time of the study was defined by a blood pressure reading of 140/90 mm Hg or higher or by treating the condition with blood pressure medications. Participants with a blood pressure reading of less than 140/90 mm Hg were categorized as having controlled blood pressure.

With data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) taken between1999 and 2018, the study authors looked at 20-year trends in high blood pressure awareness and treatment and blood pressure control. The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics conducts NHANES.

Read the full news release from NIH here.

Dr. Bill Groutas, Wichita State University medical chemist, along with Kansas State University virologists Yunjeong Kim and Kyeong-Ok (KC) Chang published the study showing a possible therapeutic treatment for COVID-19 titled 3C-like protease inhibitors block SARS-CoV-2 replication in vitro and increase survival in MERS-CoV-infected mice which appears in the Aug. 3 issue of the prestigious medical journal Science Translational Medicine.

It reveals how small molecule protease inhibitors show potency against human coronaviruses. These coronavirus 3C-like proteases, known as 3CLpro, are strong therapeutic targets because they play vital roles in coronavirus replication.

The study demonstrates that this series of optimized coronavirus 3CLpro inhibitors blocked replication of the human coronaviruses MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 in cultured cells and in a mouse model for MERS. These findings suggest that this series of compounds should be investigated further as a potential therapeutic for human coronavirus infection.

Read full story from WSU here.

There are many unanswered questions about COVID-19. A Kansas State University infectious disease scientist and collaborators are offering a possible research road map to find the answers.

Jürgen A. Richt, the Regents distinguished professor at Kansas State University in the College of Veterinary Medicine, has co-authored a critical needs assessment for coronavirus-related research in companion animals and livestock. The article, "A Critical Needs Assessment for Research in Companion Animals and Livestock Following the Pandemic of COVID-19 in Humans," appears in the journal Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases. Co-authors include Tracey McNamara from Western University of Health Sciences and Larry Glickman from Purdue University.

Because of the rapid change of knowledge related to coronavirus, Richt and his collaborators wrote the article to stress importance of studying the ways that COVID-19 could spread between humans and animals. The scientists say that research should focus in several areas, including:

• The potential for companion animals, such as cats and dogs, to carry the virus.
• The economic and food security effects if the virus can spread among livestock and poultry.
• National security areas, especially among service animals such as dogs that detect narcotics or explosives because COVID-19 is known to affect smell and cause hyposmia or anosmia.

Richt's own coronavirus research at the Biosecurity Research Institute focuses on four areas: animal susceptibility and transmission of SARS-CoV-2, therapeutic treatments, diagnostics and vaccines. Richt develops models to test therapies and has collaborated with researchers nationally and internationally. He also is collaborating to test and develop potential vaccines that are safer and do not lead to vaccine-associated enhancement of the disease, which is an important issue for coronavirus vaccines.

Read the full article from KSU here

Yunjeong Kim and Kyeong-Ok "KC" Chang, virologists in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University, have published a study showing a possible therapeutic treatment for COVID-19.

Pathogenic coronaviruses are a major threat to global public health, as shown by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus, or SARS-CoV; Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, known as MERS-CoV; and the newly emerged SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 infection.

The study, "3C-like protease inhibitors block coronavirus replication in vitro and improve survival in MERS-CoV-infected mice," appears in the Aug. 3 issue of the prestigious medical journal Science Translational Medicine. It reveals how small molecule protease inhibitors show potency against human coronaviruses. These coronavirus 3C-like proteases, known as 3CLpro, are strong therapeutic targets because they play vital roles in coronavirus replication.

"Vaccine developments and treatments are the biggest targets in COVID-19 research, and treatment is really key," said Chang, professor of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology. "This paper describes protease inhibitors targeting coronavirus 3CLpro, which is a well-known therapeutic target."

The study demonstrates that this series of optimized coronavirus 3CLpro inhibitors blocked replication of the human coronaviruses MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 in cultured cells and in a mouse model for MERS. These findings suggest that this series of compounds should be investigated further as a potential therapeutic for human coronavirus infection.

Read the full story from Kansas State University here.

Hospitals around the world are treating COVID-19 patients with plasma drawn from people who have recovered from the infections in hopes that their antibodies will bind to and neutralize the virus.

But in a recent study University of New Mexico researchers identify potentially serious shortcomings in the use of so-called “convalescent” plasma, reporting that none of 12 patients at UNM Hospital who received the treatment appeared to benefit from it.

“We stopped after we enrolled 13 patients [in the study] after we got some of the data back showing that most of the convalescent plasma had little to no neutralizing antibodies in it and it actually didn’t help them improve their antibody levels,” said Michelle Harkins, MD, division chief of Pulmonary, Critical Care & Sleep Medicine.

The paper, accepted online this week by the Journal of Infectious Diseases, reflects a unique collaboration between her division, the Division of Infectious Diseases and the UNM Center for Global Health, Harkins said.

Read the full story from University of New Mexico here.

A study published in the journal nature has given further supportive evidence that SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes covid-19, can be transmitted by air or through surfaces. The study revealed environmental contamination of surface and air samples with the virus in places where covid-19 positive patients were isolated.

University of Nebraska Medical Center conducted the study in association with National Strategic Research Institute USA. During the initial isolation of 13 individuals with Covid-19 at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, the researchers collected air and surface samples to examine viral shedding from isolated individuals.

The researchers said they detected viral contamination among all samples, supporting the use of airborne isolation precautions when caring for covid-19 patients.

The study has highlighted that as the pandemic progressed, a continued paucity of evidence on routes of SARS-CoV-2 transmission has resulted in shifting infection prevention and control guidelines between classically-defined airborne and droplet precautions.

Read the full story from Livemint here.

UNH researchers have identified new pathways in an RNA-based virus where inhibitors, like medical treatments, unbind. The finding could be beneficial in understanding how these inhibitors react and potentially help develop a new generation of drugs to target viruses with high death rates, like HIV-1, Zika, Ebola and SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

“When we first started this research, we never anticipated that we’d be in the midst of a pandemic caused by an RNA virus,” said Harish Vashisth, associate professor of chemical engineering. “But as these types of viruses emerge our findings will hopefully offer an enhanced understanding of how viral RNAs interact with inhibitors and be used to design better treatments.”

Similar to how humans are made up of a series of different chromosomes, known as DNA, many viruses have a genetic makeup of RNA molecules. These RNA-based genomes contain potential sites where inhibitors can attach and deactivate the virus. Part of the challenge in drug development can be fluctuations in the viral genome that may prevent the inhibitors from attaching.

In their paper, recently published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, the researchers looked specifically at an RNA fragment from the HIV-1 virus and its interaction with a ligand/inhibitor, a complex compound that is known to interfere with the virus replication process.

Read the full article from University of New Hampshire here.

Could the cure for melanoma -- the most dangerous type of skin cancer -- be a compound derived from a marine invertebrate that lives at the bottom of the ocean? National Science Foundation-funded scientists led by Alison Murray of the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada, think so.

They're looking to the microbiome of an Antarctic ascidian called Synoicum adareanum to better understand the possibilities for development of a melanoma-specific drug.

Ascidians, or "sea squirts," are primitive, sac-like marine animals that live attached to ocean bottoms around the world and feed on plankton by filtering seawater.