Current status of vaccines in psychiatry-A narrative review

A combined application of molecular docking technology and indirect ELISA for the serodiagnosis of bovine tuberculosis

BACKGROUND

There is an urgent need to find reliable and rapid bovine tuberculosis (bTB) diagnostics in response to the rising prevalence of bTB worldwide. Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) recognizes components of bTB and initiates antigen-presenting cells to mediate humoral immunity. Evaluating the affinity of antigens with TLR2 can form the basis of a new method for the diagnosis of bTB based on humoral immunity.

OBJECTIVES

To develop a reliable and rapid strategy to improve diagnostic tools for bTB.

METHODS

In this study, we expressed and purified the sixteen bTB-specific recombinant proteins in Escherichia coli. The two antigenic proteins, MPT70 and MPT83, which were most valuable for serological diagnosis of bTB were screened. Molecular docking technology was used to analyze the affinity of MPT70, MPT83, dominant epitope peptide of MPT70 (M1), and dominant epitope peptide MPT83 (M2) with TLR2, combined with the detection results of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay to evaluate the molecular docking effect.

RESULTS

The results showed that interaction surface Cα-atom root mean square deviation of proteins (M1, M2, MPT70, MPT83)-TLR2 protein are less than 2.5 A, showing a high affinity. It is verified by clinical serum samples that MPT70, MPT83, MPT70-MPT83 showed good diagnostic potential for the detection of anti-bTB IgG and M1, M2 can replace the whole protein as the detection antigen.

CONCLUSIONS

Molecular docking to evaluate the affinity of bTB protein and TLR2 combined with ELISA provides new insights for the diagnosis of bTB.

Vaccination and Immunotherapy for Major Depression

Depression is a very common disease with increasing incidence resulting from complex interactions of genetic, environmental, and immunological processes. To this day, the etiopathogenesis and treatment of depression unfortunately seem to be stuck in the synaptic gap. Despite highly potent antidepressants, the treatment rate cannot reach 100%, the treatment resistant group cannot be eliminated, and relapse cannot be prevented. These problems lead researchers to further and different research to understand and treat psychopathology. Immune dysfunction and neuroinflammation have been one of the main issues that psychiatry has focused on in recent years and helps us to understand depression. Extraneuronal components of all neuropsychiatric disorders, especially depression, have begun to be revealed in detail thanks to a better understanding of the immune system and an increase in experimental and technological possibilities. There is increasing evidence of a causal relationship between the etiopathogenesis of major depression and low-level chronic neuroinflammation. In this article, the role of neuroinflammation in the etiopathogenesis of depression and the possibilities of vaccination and immunotherapy are discussed.

Vaccine hesitancy

In summer 2019 an extracurricular activity was started at the Medical University of Vienna (MUW) with the title: “Esoterism in Medicine”, where different chapters were evaluated by students. Here we present the subheading “Vaccine Hesitancy”. Three students formulated arguments from sceptic, hesitant or anti-vaccine groups and discussed the scientific literature to rebut it. Frequent objections were partly taken from the homepage of the German Robert-Koch-Institute, the home of the “Ständige Impfkommission”. Other objections were taken from blogs and social media. The students’ rebuttal was based on current scientific literature (preferentially pubmed), but also from other scientific sources like authorities.

Trends in concept and nosology of autism spectrum disorder: A review

Autism Spectrum Disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by persistent deficits in social communication, social interaction and restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests or activities. The concept of autism has changed since its inception, from childhood schizophrenia to neuro-variation. These changes in concept have been accompanied by changes in the diagnostic threshold through which the 'case' of autism is identified. The occurrence of multiple changes in its diagnostic criteria over last 80 odd years opens up the possibility of challenges being posed to the existence of the disorder as it is today, with a possibility of newer conceptualization of autism coming up in the future. The potential consequences of the changes in its nosology and concept, such as those on the management and on prevalence estimation are some of the essential issues which need attention. In the current paper, we evaluate the evolution of the concept and nosology of autism with an overview of the accompanying impact of these changes.

Twin epidemics: The surging rise of methamphetamine use in chronic opioid users

BACKGROUND/AIMS

Recent supply-side efforts enacted to curb the opioid epidemic have had both positive (i.e., prescription opioid abuse is on the decline) and negative outcomes (i.e., shifts to other drugs). Given methamphetamine is notably increasing in use across the United States, we sought to understand whether use of methamphetamine has increased among opioid users and whether there is an association between these two epidemics.

METHODS

Patients (N = 13,521) entering drug treatment programs across the United States completed an anonymous survey of drug use patterns from 2011 to 2017. A subset of these patients (N = 300) was also interviewed to add context and expand on the structured survey.

RESULTS

Past month use of methamphetamine significantly increased among treatment-seeking opioid users (+82.6%, p < .001), from 18.8% in 2011 to 34.2% in 2017. The Western region had the greatest increase in past month methamphetamine use (+202.4%, p < 0.001) and the highest prevalence rate in 2017 (63.0%). Significant increases (p < .001) in methamphetamine use were seen among males (+81.8%), females (+97.8%), whites (+100.6%), urban residents (+123.0%) and rural residents (+93.7%).

CONCLUSIONS

Our studies show that there has been a marked increase in the past month use of methamphetamine in individuals with a primary indication of opioid use disorder. Qualitative data indicated that methamphetamine served as an opioid substitute, provided a synergistic high, and balanced out the effects of opioids so one could function "normally". Our data suggest that, at least to some extent, efforts limiting access to prescription opioids may be associated with an increase in the use of methamphetamine.