As the epidemic outbreak of 2019 coronavirus disease , general population may experience psychological distress. Evidence has suggested that negative coping styles may be related to subsequent mental illness. Therefore, we investigate the general population's psychological distress and coping styles in the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak. A cross-sectional battery of surveys was conducted from February 1-4, 2020. The Kessler 6 psychological distress scale, the simplified coping style questionnaire and a general information questionnaire were administered on-line to a convenience sample of 1599 in China. A multiple linear regression analysis was performed to identify the influence factors of psychological distress. General population's psychological distress were significant differences based on age, marriage, epidemic contact characteristics, concern with media reports, and perceived impacts of the epidemic outbreak (all p <0.001) except gender (p = 0.316). The population with younger age (F = 102.04), unmarried (t = 15.28), with history of visiting Wuhan in the past month (t = -40.86), with history of epidemics occurring in the community (t = -10.25), more concern with media reports (F = 21.84), perceived more impacts of the epidemic outbreak (changes over living situations, F = 331.71; emotional control, F = 1863.07; epidemic-related dreams, F = 1642.78) and negative coping style (t = 37.41) had higher level of psychological distress. Multivariate analysis found that marriage, epidemic contact characteristics, perceived impacts of the epidemic and coping style were the influence factors of psychological distress (all p <0.001). Epidemic of COVID-19 caused high level of psychological distress. The general mainland Chinese population with unmarried, history of visiting Wuhan in the past month, perceived more impacts of the epidemic and negative coping style had higher level of psychological distress in the early stages of COVID-19 PLOS ONE

Background: The purpose of this study was to investigate the psychological status of the general population in mainland China during the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and to explore the factors influencing psychological distress, in order to provide the basis for further psychological intervention programs. Methods: We administered three questionnaires on-line to a convenience sample of the general population from different regions of mainland China from February 1 to February 4, 2020. We used the Mandarin versions of the sixitem Kessler psychological distress scale (K6), the Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire (SCSQ), and the Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS). We also collected demographic data and other information related to the COVID-19 outbreak. Multivariate binary logistic regression analysis was used to identify factors influencing psychological distress. Results: Of 1607 respondents, 1588 returned valid questionnaires and were included in the analysis. Nearly one quarter (22.8%) had high levels of psychological distress (K6 score ≥ 13). Individuals with higher psychological distress were more likely to be unmarried, spend more than 6 h per day searching for information about COVID-19, more frequently adopt a passive coping style, and report less social support than those with lower psychological distress. Conclusions: The COVID-19 outbreak in China has a great impact on the mental health status of the general population. Active coping strategies and increased social support are significantly correlated with decreased psychological distress, and may serve as the basis for psychological interventions.

Late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins are a diverse and large group of polypeptides that play important roles in desiccation and freezing tolerance in plants. The LEA family has been systematically characterized in some plants but not Brassica napus. In this study, 108 BnLEA genes were identified in the B. napus genome and classified into eight families based on their conserved domains. Protein sequence alignments revealed an abundance of alanine, lysine and glutamic acid residues in BnLEA proteins. The BnLEA gene structure has few introns (<3), and they are distributed unevenly across all 19 chromosomes in B. napus, occurring as gene clusters in chromosomes A9, C2, C4 and C5. More than two-thirds of the BnLEA genes are associated with segmental duplication. Synteny analysis revealed that most LEA genes are conserved, although gene losses or gains were also identified. These results suggest that segmental duplication and whole-genome duplication played a major role in the expansion of the BnLEA gene family. Expression profiles analysis indicated that expression of most BnLEAs was increased in leaves and late stage seeds. This study presents a comprehensive overview of the LEA gene family in B. napus and provides new insights into the formation of this family.

Background As the epidemic outbreak of 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19), general population may experience psychological distress. Evidence has suggested that negative coping styles may be related to subsequent mental illness. Therefore, we investigate the general population's psychological distress and coping styles in the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak. Methods A cross-sectional battery of surveys was conducted from February 1-4, 2020. The Kessler 6 psychological distress scale, the simplified coping style questionnaire and a general information questionnaire were administered on-line to a convenience sample of 1599 in China. Spearman's correlation was used to measure the correlations among category variables. Results General population's psychological distress were significant differences based on age, marriage, epidemic contact characteristics, concern with media reports, and perceived impacts of the epidemic outbreak (all p <0.001) except gender (p=0.316). Those with a history of visiting Wuhan and a history of epidemics occurring in the community, more concern with media reports, perceived more severe impacts and negative coping style had a higher level of psychological distress, which was significantly positively correlated with a history of visiting Wuhan (r=0.548, p<0.001), a history of epidemics occurring in the community (r=0.219, p<0.001), and concern with media reports (r=0.192, p<0.001). Coping styles were significantly different across all category variables (all p <0.001), and negatively correlated with other category variables (all p<0.01) except age and marriage. Psychological distress was significantly negatively correlated with the coping style (r=-0.573, p<0.01). Conclusions In the early stages of COVID-19, general population with epidemic contact characteristics, excessive concern with media reports, and perceived more severe impacts have higher levels of psychological distress. Psychological distress was significantly negatively correlated with the coping style. Interventions should be implemented early, especially for those population with a high level of psychological distress and/or with a negative coping style.

Spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3) is caused by an abnormal expansion of the cytosine-adenine-guanine (CAG) triplet in ATXN3, which translates into a polyglutamine (polyQ) tract within ataxin-3 (ATXN3) protein. Although the pathogenic mechanisms remain unclear, it is well established that expression of mutant forms of ATXN3 carrying an expanded polyQ domain are involved in SCA3 pathogenesis, and several strategies to suppress mutant ATXN3 have shown promising potential for SCA3 treatment. In this study, we described successful clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9-mediated deletion of the expanded polyQ-encoding region of ATXN3 in induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from a SCA3 patient, and these patient-specific iPSCs retained pluripotency and neural differentiation following expanded polyQ deletion. Furthermore, the ubiquitin-binding capacity of ATXN3 was retained in the neural cells differentiated from the corrected iPSCs. For the first time, this work provides preliminary data for gene editing by CRISPR/Cas9 in SCA3, and demonstrates the feasibility of using a single-guide RNA pair to delete the expanded polyQ-encoding region of ATXN3, suggesting the potential efficacy of this method for future therapeutic application.