The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been transmitted worldwide over a very short time after it originated in China in December 2019. In an attempt to control its spread and reduce its health impacts, several countries including those in the African continent imposed restrictive measures that was termed "lockdown". The outcomes of this lockdown have been reported to be beneficial to air quality worldwide.  https://www.selleckchem.com/products/bozitinib.html  The main objective of this study is to assess the impact of lockdown due to COVID-19 on nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels over six major cities in Nigeria. Maps extracted from satellite (Sentinel-5P) were used to indicate the significant reduction in the level of NO2 in the selected cities in Nigeria during two time-intervals, pre-lockdown (December, 2019) and during lockdown (April, 2020). The results show a significant reduction in NO2 levels during the lockdown period compared with its levels during the pre-lockdown period in 2019. The reduction in NO2 concentration levels during lockdown is likely due to less traffic, social distancing and restrictions on business and human activities. There could be an element of uncertainty in the results due to seasonality, as the comparison is done with a different season. However, the magnitude of change due to lockdown is probably much higher than the seasonal variability. Although COVID-19 has negatively impacted the health and economic status of all regions worldwide, it has benefited some aspects of air quality in most countries including Nigeria. This indicates that anthropogenic activities may be managed to reduce air pollution and positively impact the health of human beings.
  Plastic pollution affects all ecosystems, and detrimental effects to animals have been reported in a growing number of studies. However, there is a paucity of evidence for effects on terrestrial animals in comparison to those in the marine realm.
 
  We used the fly 
  to study the effects that exposure to plastics may have on life history traits and immune response. We reared flies in four conditions In media containing 1% virgin polyethylene, with no chemical additives; in media supplemented with 1% or 4% polyvinyl chloride, known to have a high content of added chemicals; and control flies in non-supplemented media. Plastic particle size ranged from 23-500µm. We studied fly survival to viral infection, the length of the larval and pupal stage, sex ratios, fertility and the size of the resultant adult flies. We then performed crossings of F1 flies in non-supplemented media and looked at the life history traits of the F2.
 
  Flies treated with plastics in the food media showed changes in fertility and sex ratio, but showed no differences in developmental times, adult size or the capacity to fight infections in comparison with controls. However, the offspring of treated flies reared in non-supplemented food had shorter life cycles, and those coming from both polyvinyl chloride treatments were smaller than those offspring of controls.
 Flies treated with plastics in the food media showed changes in fertility and sex ratio, but showed no differences in developmental times, adult size or the capacity to fight infections in comparison with controls. However, the offspring of treated flies reared in non-supplemented food had shorter life cycles, and those coming from both polyvinyl chloride treatments were smaller than those offspring of controls.
  Esophageal carcinogenesis involves in alterations of DNA methylation and gene transcription. This study profiled genomic DNA methylome vs. gene expression using transcriptome data on esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) tissues from the online databases in order to identify methylation biomarkers in EAC early diagnosis.
 
  The DNA methylome and transcriptome data were downloaded from the UCSC Xena, Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) databases and then bioinformatically analyzed for the differentially methylated positions (DMPs) vs. gene expression between EAC and normal tissues. The highly methylated DMPs vs. reduced gene expression in EAC were selected and then stratified with those of the corresponding normal blood samples and other common human cancers to construct an EAC-specific diagnostic model. The usefulness of this model was further verified in other three GEO datasets of EAC tissues.
 
  A total of 841 DMPs were associated with expression of 320 genes, some of which were aberrantly methylated in EAC tissues. Further analysis showed that four (cg07589773, cg10474350, cg13011388 and cg15208375 mapped to gene IKZF1, HOXA7, EFS and TSHZ3, respectively) of these 841 DMPs could form and establish a diagnostic model after stratified them with the corresponding normal blood samples and other common human cancers. The data were further validated in other three GEO datasets on EAC tissues in early EAC diagnosis.
 
  This study revealed a diagnostic model of four genes methylation to diagnose EAC early. Further study will confirm the usefulness of this model in a prospective EAC cases.
 This study revealed a diagnostic model of four genes methylation to diagnose EAC early. Further study will confirm the usefulness of this model in a prospective EAC cases.The tumor microenvironment (TME) influences the occurrence and progression of tumors, and hypoxia is an important characteristic of the TME. The expression of programmed death 1 (PD1)/programmed death-ligand 1 (PDL1), cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated antigen 4 (CTLA4), and other immune checkpoints in hypoxic malignant tumors is often significantly increased, and is associated with poor prognosis. The application of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) for treating lung cancer, urothelial carcinoma, and gynecological tumors has achieved encouraging efficacy; however, the rate of efficacy of ICI single-drug treatment is only about 20%. In the present review, we discuss the possible mechanisms by which the hypoxic TME regulates immune checkpoints. By activating hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α), regulating the adenosine (Ado)-A2aR pathway, regulating the glycolytic pathway, and driving epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and other biological pathways, hypoxia regulates the expression levels of CTLA4, PD1, PDL1, CD47, lymphocyte activation gene 3 (LAG3), T-cell immunoglobulin and mucin domain 3 (TIM3), and other immune checkpoints, which interfere with the immune effector cell anti-tumor response and provide convenient conditions for tumors to escape immune surveillance.