Novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has affected nearly 7 million individuals and claimed more than 0.4 million lives to date. There are several reports of gender differences related to infection and death due to COVID-19. This raises important questions such as “Whether there are differences based on gender in risk and severity of infection or mortality rate?” and “What are the biological explanation and mechanisms underlying these differences?” Emerging evidences have proposed sex-based immunological, genetic, and hormonal differences to explain this ambiguity. Besides biological differences, women have also faced social inequities and economic hardships due to this pandemic. Several recent studies have shown that independent of age males are at higher risk for severity and mortality in COVID-19 patients. Although susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 was found to be similar across both genders in several disease cohorts, a disproportionate death ratio in men can be partly explained by the higher burden of pre-existing diseases and occupational exposures among men. At immunological point of view, females can engage a more active immune response, which may protect them and counter infectious diseases as compared to men. This attribute of better immune responses towards pathogens is thought to be due to high estrogen levels in females. Here we review the current knowledge about sex differences in susceptibility, the severity of infection and mortality, host immune responses, and the role of sex hormones in COVID-19 disease.

Background: The current COVID-19 pandemic has affected most severely people with old age, or with comorbidities like hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and cancer. Cancer patients are twice more likely to contract the disease because of the malignancy or treatment-related immunosuppression; hence identification of the vulnerable population among these patients is essential.Method: We took a bioinformatics approach to analyze the gene and protein expression data of these coronavirus receptors (DPP4, ANPEP, ENPEP, TMPRSS2) in human normal and cancer tissues of multiple organs including the brain, liver, kidney, heart, lung, skin, GI tract, pancreas, endocrine tissues, and the reproductive organs. RNA-Seq data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and GTeX databases were used for extensive profiling analysis of these receptors across 9,736 tumors and 8,587 normal tissues comparing coronavirus receptors. Protein expression from immunohistochemistry data was assessed from The Human Protein Atlas database including 144 samples, corresponding to 48 different normal human tissue types, and 432 tumor samples from 216 different cancer patients. The correlations between immune cell infiltration, chemokine, and cytokines were investigated via Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER) and TCGA.Result: We found that among all, renal tumor and normal tissues exhibited increased levels of ACE2, DPP4, ANPEP, and ENPEP. Our results revealed that TMPRSS2 may not be the co-receptor for coronavirus infection in renal carcinoma patients. The other receptors DPP4, ANPEP, and ENPEP may act as the compensatory receptor proteins to help ACE2. The receptors' expression levels were variable in different tumor stage, molecular, and immune subtypes of renal carcinoma. Intriguingly, in clear cell renal cell carcinomas, coronavirus receptors were associated with high immune infiltration, markers of immunosuppression, and T cell exhaustion.Conclusion: Our study indicates that CoV receptors may play an important role in modulating the immune infiltrate and hence cellular immunity in renal carcinoma. As our current knowledge of pathogenic mechanisms will improve, it may help us in designing focused therapeutic approaches.

OBJECTIVE: Recent outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), another member of coronavirus family is an ongoing worldwide life-threatening crisis. The early diagnosis and management of the disease remains a major challenge. In this review, we aim to summarize the updated epidemiology, causes, clinical manifestation and diagnosis, as well as prevention and control of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A broad search of the literature was performed in “PubMed” “Medline” “Web of knowledge”, and “Google Scholar” World Health Organization-WHO” using the key words “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus”, “SARS”, “SARS-CoV-2” “Epidemiology” “Transmission” “Pathogenesis” “Clinical Characteristics”. We reviewed and documented the information attained from literature on epidemiology, pathogenesis and clinical appearances of SARS-CoV-2 infection. RESULTS: The global cases of COVID-19 till 30th March 2020 have rose more than 700,000 and morbidity has gone more than 37,000. The infection rate for COVID-19 has been predicted to be higher than the previous outbreaks of same family members, that includes the SARS-CoV and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV). The main clinical presentation ranges from asymptomatic stages to severe lower respiratory infection in the form of pneumonia. Most of the patients also presented with fever, cough, sore throat, headache, fatigue, myalgia and breathlessness. High risk includes elderly people and patients with weak immune system or suffering from chronic medical condition like hypertension, diabetes, cancer, respiratory illness and cardiovascular diseases. CONCLUSIONS: SARS-Cov-2 has emerged as a worldwide threat, affecting almost each and every country on globe. As there is still growing understanding of SARS-CoV-2 in relation to its virology, epidemiology and clinical management strategies, we need to learn our lessons to conceive comprehensive measures to prevent such outbreaks in future.

Diagnosis of persons exposed to/infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is central to controlling the global pandemic of COVID-19. Currently, several diagnostic modalities are available for COVID-19, each with its own pros and cons. Although there is a global consensus to increase the testing capacity, it is also essential to prudently utilize these tests to control the pandemic. In this paper, we have reviewed the current array of diagnostics for SARSCoV-2 highlighted the gaps in current diagnostic modalities and their role in community surveillance and control of the pandemic. The different modalities of COVID-19 diagnosis discussed are: clinical and radiological, molecular-based (laboratory-based and point-of-care), Immunoassay based (ELISA, rapid antigen and antibody detection tests) and digital diagnostics (artificial intelligence-based algorithms). The role of rapid antigen/antibody detection tests in community surveillance has also been described here. These tests can be used to identify asymptomatic persons exposed to the virus and in community-based seroprevalence surveys to assess the epidemiology of spread of the virus. However, there are few concerns about the accuracy of these tests which needs to evaluated beforehand.

BackgroundSudoku is a popular cognitively stimulating leisure-time activity. Many studies have been directed toward finding an algorithm to solve Sudoku, but the investigation of the neural substrates involved in Sudoku has been challenging.MethodsSudoku task was divided into two steps to understand the differential function of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) while applying heuristic rules. PFC activity was recorded at 16 optode locations using functional near infrared spectroscopy. Classical two-way analysis of variance as well as general linear model-based approach was used to analyze the data from 28 noise-free recordings obtained from right-handed participants.ResultsPost hoc analysis showed a significant increase in oxyhemoglobin concentrations and decrease in deoxyhemoglobin concentrations at all 16 optode locations during step 1 (3 × 3 subgrids) and step 2 (easy level 9 × 9 Sudoku) when compared with the rest (p < 0.0001). Contrasting the step 2 – step 1 revealed that medial regions of PFC were preferentially activated.ConclusionBoth the medial and lateral regions of PFC are activated during Sudoku task. However, the medial regions of PFC play a differential role, especially when we consider searching and selecting the heuristic rules. Thus, Sudoku may be used for cognitive remediation training in neuropsychiatric disorders involving PFC.