Several studies show that the immunosuppressive drugs targeting the interleukin-6 (IL-6) receptor, including tocilizumab, ameliorate lethal inflammatory responses in COVID-19 patients infected with SARS-CoV-2. Here, by employing single-cell analysis of the immune cell composition of two severe-stage COVID-19 patients prior to and following tocilizumabinduced remission, we identify a monocyte subpopulation that contributes to the inflammatory cytokine storms. Furthermore, although tocilizumab treatment attenuates the inflammation, immune cells, including plasma B cells and CD8 + T cells, still exhibit robust humoral and cellular antiviral immune responses. Thus, in addition to providing a highdimensional dataset on the immune cell distribution at multiple stages of the COVID-19, our work also provides insights into the therapeutic effects of tocilizumab, and identifies potential target cell populations for treating COVID-19-related cytokine storms.

In this large study of GDM in Chinese women, advanced maternal age, pre-pregnancy overweight or obesity and family history of diabetes were confirmed to be risk factors. In addition, a history of recurrent vulvovaginal candidiasis or spontaneous abortion and residency in south China appeared to be novel risk factors in this population.

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During investigations into the outbreak of duck viral infection in 2010 in China, with a severe drop in egg production, a flavivirus was isolated from the affected ducks. It was characterized as a Tembusu virus (TMUV). In this study, we obtained a complete genome sequence of Tembusu virus using RT-PCR and RACE techniques. TMUV genome is a singled-stranded RNA, with 10,990 nucleotides in length, and contains a single open reading frame (3410 amino acids) encoding 11 viral proteins with 5'and 3'non-translated regions (NTRs) of 142 and 618 nt, respectively. We characterized the open reading frame (ORF) with respect to gene sizes, cleavage sites and potential glycosylation sites. The different genomic regions of the virus were also compared with those of six other flaviviruses including Japanese encephalitis virus, West Nile virus (WNV), dengue-2 virus, yellow fever virus, tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) and Bagaza virus. TMUV demonstrated the highest similarity to Bagaza virus. The result of entire ORF scanning shows that TMUV was close to Bagaza viruses in genetic relatedness. These data demonstrate that TMUV is a unique virus among the mosquito-borne flaviviruses and also provide a useful reference for a critically important study to determine why TMUV is a serious pathogen for ducks.

Tembusu virus (TMUV) is a flavivirus, presumed to be a mosquito-borne flavivirus of the Ntaya virus subgroup. To date, however, there have been no reports indicating that mosquitoes are involved in the spread of TMUV. In this study, we report the first isolation of TMUV from Culex mosquitoes. We describe the isolation and characterization of a field strain of TMUV from mosquitoes collected in Shandong Province, China. The virus isolate, named TMUV-SDMS, grows well in mosquito cell line C6/36, in Vero and duck embryo fibroblast (DEF) cell lines, and causes significant cytopathic effects in these cell cultures. The TMUV-SDMS genome is a single-stranded RNA, 10 989 nt in length, consisting of a single open reading frame encoding a polyprotein of 3410 amino acids, with 5' and 3' untranslated regions of 142 and 617 nt, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis of the E and NS5 genes revealed that the TMUV-SDMS is closely related to the TMUV YY5 and BYD strains which cause severe egg-drop in ducks. The 3'NTR of TMUV-SDMS contains two pairs of tandem repeat CS and one non-duplicate CS, which have sequence similarities to the same repeats in the YY5 and BYD strains. Our findings indicate that mosquitoes carrying the TMUV may play an important role in the spread of this virus and in disease outbreak.