Chia-Hung Yang

The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak expanded rapidly throughout China. Major behavioral, clinical, and state interventions were undertaken to mitigate the epidemic and prevent the persistence of the virus in human populations in China and worldwide. It remains unclear how these unprecedented interventions, including travel restrictions, affected COVID-19 spread in China. We used real-time mobility data from Wuhan and detailed case data including travel history to elucidate the role of case importation in transmission in cities across China and to ascertain the impact of control measures. Early on, the spatial distribution of COVID-19 cases in China was explained well by human mobility data. After the implementation of control measures, this correlation dropped and growth rates became negative in most locations, although shifts in the demographics of reported cases were still indicative of local chains of transmission outside of Wuhan. This study shows that the drastic control measures implemented in China substantially mitigated the spread of COVID-19.

The ongoing COVID-19 outbreak has expanded rapidly throughout China. Major behavioral, clinical, and state interventions are underway currently to mitigate the epidemic and prevent the persistence of the virus in human populations in China and worldwide. It remains unclear how these unprecedented interventions, including travel restrictions, have affected COVID-19 spread in China. We use real-time mobility data from Wuhan and detailed case data including travel history to elucidate the role of case importation on transmission in cities across China and ascertain the impact of control measures. Early on, the spatial distribution of COVID-19 cases in China was well explained by human mobility data. Following the implementation of control measures, this correlation dropped and growth rates became negative in most locations, although shifts in the demographics of reported cases are still indicative of local chains of transmission outside Wuhan. This study shows that the drastic control measures implemented in China have substantially mitigated the spread of COVID-19.

. This field is built around the idea that an increased understanding of the complex structural properties of a variety systems will allow us to better observe, predict, and even control the behavior of these systems.

BACKGROUND: Approximately one-third of cases of dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) are caused by genetic mutations. With new sequencing technologies, numerous variants have been associated with this inherited cardiomyopathy, however the prevalence and genotype-phenotype correlations in different ethnic cohorts remain unclear. This study aimed to investigate the variants in Chinese DCM patients and correlate them with clinical presentations and prognosis. METHODS AND RESULTS: ). More than 80% of the TTN variants (27/33, 81.8%) were distributed in the A band region of the sarcomere. Patients carrying these variants did not have a different phenotype in disease severity, clinical outcome and reversibility of ventricular function compared with non-carriers. CONCLUSIONS: remains the major disease-causing gene. Our results could be a reference for future genetic tests in Chinese populations. No specific genotype-phenotype correlations were found, however a prospective large cohort study may be needed to confirm our findings.

Abstract Molecular analyses of closely related taxa have increasingly revealed the importance of higher-order genetic interactions in explaining the observed pattern of reproductive isolation between populations. Indeed, both empirical and theoretical studies have linked the process of speciation to complex genetic interactions. Gene Regulatory Networks (GRNs) capture the inter-dependencies of gene expression and encode information about an individual’s phenotype and development at the molecular level. As a result, GRNs can–in principle–evolve via natural selection and play a role in non-selective, evolutionary forces. Here, we develop a network-based model, termed the pathway framework, that considers GRNs as a functional representation of coding sequences. We then simulated the dynamics of GRNs using a simple model that included natural selection, genetic drift, and sexual reproduction and found that reproductive barriers can develop rapidly between allopatric populations experiencing identical selection pressure. Further, we show that alleles involved in reproductive isolation can predate the allopatric separation of populations and that the number of interacting loci involved in genetic incompatibilities, i.e., the order, is often high simply as a by-product of the networked structure of GRNs. Finally, we discuss how results from the pathway framework are consistent with observed empirical patterns for genes putatively involved in post-zygotic isolation. Taken together, this study adds support for the central role of gene networks in speciation and in evolution more broadly.