Financial Disclosure Rachel G. Sinkey reports money was paid to her institution from GestVision and ProLab. Alan T. Tita reports money was paid to his institution from the NIH, CDC, and Pfizer for COVID-19 and RSV vaccine in pregnancy studies. Ashley N. Battarbee reports money was paid to her institution from the NIH and CDC for COVID-19 in pregnancy studies. Akila Subramaniam reports money was paid to her institution from the NIH. Jeff M. Szychowski reports money was paid to his institution from the NIH. Jodie Dionne-Odom currently receives grant funding from NIH/NICHD for an unrelated study on infection in pregnancy. Sixto M. Leal Jr. reports money was paid to his institution from the NIH, CDC, ADPH, CNINE, GenMark, mFluiDx, IMMY, SpeeDx, Abnova, Amplyx, IHMA, and JMI. Nitin Arora reports money was paid to his institution from the Congenital and Perinatal Infections Consortium,

Two years into the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, we have now seen three main variant waves. We performed a retrospective cohort study of all pregnant patients with COVID-19 at our institution from March 22, 2020, to February 26, 2022, to evaluate disease severity and perinatal outcomes among the variants. Patients were

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The crystallographic structure of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) protein Rv3902c (176 residues; molecular mass of 19.8 kDa) was determined at 1.55 Å resolution. The function of Rv3902c is unknown, although several TB genes involved in bacterial pathogenesis are expressed from the operon containing the Rv3902c gene. The unique structural fold of Rv3902c contains two domains, each consisting of antiparallel -sheets and -helices, creating a hand-like binding motif with a small binding pocket in the palm. Structural homology searches reveal that Rv3902c has an overall structure similar to that of the Salmonella virulence-factor chaperone InvB, with an r.m.s.d. for main-chain atoms of 2.3 Å along an aligned domain.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), causative agent of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), binds via ACE2 receptors, highly expressed in ciliated cells of the nasal epithelium. Micro-optical coherence tomography (μOCT) is a minimally invasive intranasal imaging technique that can determine cellular and functional dynamics of respiratory epithelia at 1-μm resolution, enabling real time visualization and quantification of epithelial anatomy, ciliary motion, and mucus transport. We hypothesized that respiratory epithelial cell dysfunction in COVID-19 will manifest as reduced ciliated cell function and mucociliary abnormalities, features readily visualized by μOCT. Symptomatic outpatients with SARS-CoV-2 aged ≥ 18 years were recruited within 14 days of symptom onset. Data was interpreted for subjects with COVID-19 (n=13) in comparison to healthy controls (n=8). Significant reduction in functional cilia, diminished ciliary beat frequency, and abnormal ciliary activity were evident. Other abnormalities included denuded epithelium, presence of mucus rafts, and increased inflammatory cells. Our results indicate that subjects with mild but symptomatic COVID-19 exhibit functional abnormalities of the respiratory mucosa underscoring the importance of mucociliary health in viral illness and disease transmission. Ciliary imaging enables investigation of early pathogenic mechanisms of COVID-19 and may be useful for evaluating disease progression and therapeutic response.