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  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 10
    Citation - Scopus: 12
    Detection of Viruses by Probe-Gated Silica Nanoparticles Directly From Swab Samples
    (Elsevier, 2022) Tuna, Bilge Guvenc; Durdabak, Dilara Buse; Ercan, Meltem Kazak; Dogan, Soner; Kavruk, Murat; Dursun, Ali Dogan; Ozalp, Veli Cengiz
    Viral infection has been one of the major health issues for human life. The real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)-based detection has primarily been used for virus detection as a highly reliable procedure. However, it is a relatively long and multi-stage process. In addition, required skilled personnel and complex instrumentation presents difficulties in large scale monitoring efforts. Therefore, we report here a direct and fast detection method for CoV-2 genome as applied in the nose-throat swab samples without any further processing. The detection principle is based on fluorescein-loaded mesoporous silica nanoparticles capped by specific gene sequences probes immobilized on the surface of the nanoparticles. Upon hybridization with the target viral genome, the fluorescein molecules were released from the mesopores. Testing with synthetic oligonucleotides, the NSP12 gene-based detection resulted in a strong signal. Target detection time could be optimized to 15 min and the limit of detection was 1.4 RFU with 84% sensitivity with clinical samples (n = 43).
  • Book Part
    In Silico Study of Molecular Mimicry Between Sars-Cov and Neutrophil Extracellular Traps Composition in Granulocyte-Rich Supernatants of Patients With Systemic Lupus Erythematosus and Lupus Nephritis
    (Elsevier, 2022) Adiguzel,Y.; Shoenfeld,Y.
    Neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) are detected in both COVID-19 and autoimmune disorders. Molecular mimicry between NETs-related proteins and SARS-CoV-2 proteins may be the mechanism that can lead to an autoimmune response. Accordingly, similar sequences were searched with blastp, between SARS-CoV-2 proteins and 148 proteins that were reported in the NETs composition induced in neutrophils of supernatants from patients with systemic lupus erythematosus and lupus nephritis. Query-subject epitope pairs with strong-binding affinities to 12 HLA supertype representative alleles were predicted for the aligned sequences with at least 50% identities. According to the prediction results, all HLA alleles under study have affinities to the similar SARS-CoV-2 and NETs' proteins. These affinities can bring molecular mimicry-based autoimmunity risk with NETs-pathology, in susceptible individuals, upon infection with SARS-CoV-2. However, HLA-A∗01:01 carriers can be at a higher risk due to the association of this allele with the highest number of NETs-related human proteins, and similar (unique) query-subject epitope pairs of those proteins and SARS-CoV-2. Additionally, HLA-A∗02:01 carriers may specifically be prone to higher risk than expected, if infected with SARS-CoV-2. Furthermore, HLA-A∗24:02 was predicted to bind strongly to an elevated number of unique SARS-CoV-2 subject sequences while the number of both associated human proteins, and unique queries of those, are rather low. It may be indicative of a pertaining pathology despite viral evolution. © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.