BACKGROUND People with psychosis experience disruptions in personal identity that affect positive and negative symptoms, but the complexity of these phenomena needs to be addressed in an in-depth manner. Using the Personal Construct Theory, we examined whether distinct dimensions of personal identity, as measured with the Repertory Grid Technique along with other cognitive factors, might influence psychotic symptomatology. METHOD Eighty-five outpatients with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders completed a repertory grid, an observed-rated interview of psychotic symptoms, and measures of cognitive insight, depressive symptoms, neurocognition, and theory of mind. RESULTS Structural equation models revealed that interpersonal dichotomous thinking directly affected positive symptoms. Self-discrepancies influenced positive symptoms by mediation of depressive symptoms. Interpersonal cognitive differentiation and interpersonal cognitive richness mediated the impact of self-reflectivity and neurocognitive deficits in negative symptomatology. CONCLUSIONS This study is the first of its kind to examine the structure of personal identity in relation to positive and negative symptoms of psychosis. Results suggest interventions targeted to improving interpersonal dichotomous thinking, self-discrepancies, interpersonal cognitive differentiation, and interpersonal cognitive richness may be useful in improving psychotic symptoms. © The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email journals.permissions@oup.com.BACKGROUND Lungs from patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have shown typical signs of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), formation of hyaline membrane mainly composed of fibrin, and 'ground-glass' opacity. Previously, we showed plasminogen itself is a key regulator in fibrin degradation, wound healing and infection. AIM We aimed to investigate whether plasminogen can improve lung lesions and hypoxemia of COVID-19. DESIGN Thirteen clinically moderate, severe or critical COVID-19 patients were treated with atomization inhalation of freeze-dried plasminogen. METHODS Levels of their lung lesions, oxygen saturation and heart rates were compared before and after treatment by CT scanning images and patient monitor. RESULTS After plasminogen inhalation, conditions of lung lesions in 5 clinically moderate patients have quickly improved, shown as the decreased range and density of 'ground glass' opacity. Improvements of oxygen saturation were observed in 6 clinically severe patients. In the 2 patients with critical conditions, the oxygen levels have significantly increased from 79-82% to 91% just about 1 hour after the first inhalation. In 8 of 13 patients the heart rates had slowed down. For the 5 clinically moderate patients, the difference is even statistically significant. Furthermore, a general relief of chest tightness was observed. CONCLUSION Whereas it is reported that plasminogen is dramatically increased in adults with ARDS, this study suggests that additional plasminogen may be effective and efficient in treating lung lesions and hypoxemia during COVID-19 infections. Although further studies are needed, this study highlights a possible hope of efficiently combating this rapid epidemic emergency. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Association of Physicians.Single-chain Fv (scFv) is a recombinant antibody in which the variable regions of the heavy chain (VH) and light chain (VL) are connected by a short flexible polypeptide linker. Compared with monoclonal antibodies, scFvs have the advantages of low-cost production using Escherichia coli and easy genetic manipulation. ScFvs are therefore regarded as useful modules for producing next-generation medical antibodies. The practical use of scFvs has been limited due to their aggregation propensity mediated by interchain VH-VL interactions. To overcome this problem, we recently reported a cyclic scFv whose N-terminus and C-terminus were connected by sortase A-mediated ligation. Preparation of cyclic scFv is, however, a time-consuming process. To accelerate the application study of cyclic scFv, we developed a method to produce cyclic scFv by the combined use of a protein ligation technique based on protein trans-splicing reaction (PTS) by split intein and a chaperone co-expression system.  https://www.selleckchem.com/products/ly2874455.html  This method allows for the preparation of active cyclic scFv from the cytoplasm of E. coli. The present method was applied to the production of cyclic 73MuL9-scFv, a GA-pyridine antibody, as a kind of advanced glycation end product (AGE). These findings are expected to evoke further application study of cyclic scFv. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Japanese Biochemical Society. All rights reserved.Next Generation Risk Assessment (NGRA) is defined as an exposure-led, hypothesis-driven risk assessment approach that integrates New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) to assure safety without the use of animal testing. These principles were applied to a hypothetical safety assessment of 0.1% coumarin in face cream and body lotion. For the purpose of evaluating the use of NAMs, existing animal and human data on coumarin were excluded. Internal concentrations (plasma Cmax) were estimated using a physiologically-based kinetic (PBK) model for dermally applied coumarin. Systemic toxicity was assessed using a battery of in vitro NAMs to identify points of departure (PoDs) for a variety of biological effects such as receptor-mediated and immunomodulatory effects (Eurofins Safety44™ screen and BioMap® Diversity 8 Panel, respectively), and general bioactivity (ToxCast data, an in vitro cell stress panel and high-throughput transcriptomics (HTTr)). In addition, in silico alerts for genotoxicity were followed up with the ToxTracker® tool. The PoDs from the in vitro assays were plotted against the calculated in vivo exposure in order to calculate a margin of safety (MoS) with associated uncertainty. The predicted Cmax values for face cream and body lotion were lower than all PoDs with MoS higher than 100. Furthermore, coumarin was not genotoxic, did not bind to any of the 44 receptors tested and did not show any immunomodulatory effects at consumer relevant exposures. In conclusion, this case study demonstrated the value of integrating exposure science, computational modelling and in vitro bioactivity data, in order to reach a safety decision without animal data. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Toxicology.