Background Patients with cancer might be at an increased risk of infection with COVID-19 and a more severe disease course. However, different tumor types have differing susceptibility to the infection and COVID-19 phenotypes. Thus, the risk and prevalence of COVID-19 is not uniform across the different tumor types. Here, we performed a meta-analysis to estimate the risk and prevalence of COVID-19 infection in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. Methods A comprehensive literature search was performed up to July 25, 2020, thorough PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, CNKI, CBM, China Science, Wan Fang, and SciELO databases. The risk of COVID-19 infection in CRC patients was performed based on the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI). Results A total of six studies with 204 different cancer patients with COVID-19 and 92 CRC infected patients with COVID-19 were selected. Our results showed that the prevalence of COVID-19 infection in CRC patients was 45.1% in the global population. The pooled data showed that there is no a significant risk of infection with COVID-19 in CRC patients in the global population (OR = 0.261, 95% CI 0.099-0.533, p = 0.082). However, when subgroup analysis was performed based on country of origin, we found a significant correlation in Chinese CRC patients (OR = 0.221, 95% CI 0.146-0.319, p ≤ 0.001). Conclusions This study results revealed that Chinese CRC patients harbored a higher risk of COVID-19 infection. However, more multicenter, larger sample sizes and high-quality studies are required to verify this meta-analysis result.

Antimicrobial peptides, as an important member of the innate immune system, have various biological activities in addition to antimicrobial activity. There are some AMPs with antidiabetic activity, especially those isolated from amphibians. These peptides can induce insulin release via different mechanisms based on peptide type. In this review study, we collected all reported AMPs with antidiabetic activity. We also analyze the sequence and structure of these peptides for evaluation of sequence and structure effect on their antidiabetic activity. Based on this review, the biggest peptide family with antidiabetic activity is temporins with nine antidiabetic peptides. Frogs are the most abundant source of antidiabetic peptides. Bioinformatics analysis showed that an increase of positive net charge and a decrease of hydrophobicity can improve the insulinotropic effect of peptides. Peptides with higher positive net charge and Boman index showed higher activity. Based on this review article, AMPs with antidiabetic activity, especially those isolated from amphibians, can be used as novel antidiabetic drug for type 2 diabetes disease. So, amphibians are potential sources for active peptides which merit further evaluation as novel insulin secretagogues. However, strategy for the increase of stability and positive activity as well as the decrease of negative side effects must be considered.

Background Blood group antigens are one of the most important antigens in humans that have an impact on susceptibility to disease and may be used as a prognosis factor in different diseases such as covid-19. Objectives Study aimed to investigate the relationship between ABO blood groups and Rhesus antigen and susceptibility to COVID-19. Methods The clinical data of 398 subjects were used in the investigation collected from 148 cases vs. 250 controls. This information was obtained from Shahid Sadoughi Hospital of Yazd (IRAN) University. blood groups and outcomes was assessed using statistical tests for four populations: COV + vs. COV− and COV +/deceased vs. COV +/live. Results Out of a total of 148 COVID19 patients, 80 (54/1%) were male, 68 (45/9%) were female. Among these patients 33 (22/6%) had type A+, 44 (30/1%) had type B+, 13 (8/9%) had type AB+ and 36 (24/7%) had type O+. On the other hand, out of a 148 patients, 126 (86/3%) had positive blood types and 20 (13/7%) had negative blood types. As a result, no significant difference was found in the relationship between ABO blood groups and RH type and susceptibility to COVID-19 (p-value= 0.392 and p-value=0.847, respectively). Other data showed a significant difference between patients group with other parameters such as age (p-value<0.001) and gender (p-value<0.001). Conclusion Although in this study there was no association between blood type and RH type with COVID-19, findings about association between age and gender can confirm the results of previous studies.

Cervical cancer is the second most commonly diagnosed malignancy and third leading cause of cancer-related mortality among women in less developed countries (Karimi Zarchi et al., 2010; Mousavi et al., 2008). According to GLOBOCAN, cervical cancer accounts for 528,000 new cases and 266,000 deaths worldwide in 2012 (Parkin et al., 2005). Although, it has been widely accepted for several decades that Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the main risk factor for development of cervical cancer (Behtash et al., 2009; Farbod et al., 2019; Ghaemmaghami et al., 2008), HPV infections have developed to persistent infection in only a very few cases and it is sufficient to induce cervical cancer in an even smaller proportion

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