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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), epidemic poses a major global public health threat with more than one million daily new infections and hundreds of deaths. To combat this global pandemic, efficient prevention and management strategies are urgently needed. Together with the main characteristics of COVID-19, impaired coagulation with dysfunctions of the immune response in COVID-19 pathophysiology causes high mortality and morbidity. From recent clinical observations, increased expression of specific types of estrogen appears to protect patients from SARS-CoV-2 infection, thereby, reducing mortality. COVID-19 severity is less common in women than in men, particularly in menopausal women. Furthermore, estrogen levels are negatively correlated with COVID-19 severity and mortality. These findings suggest that estrogen plays a protective role in the pathophysiology of COVID-19. In this review, we discuss the potential roles of estrogen in blocking the SARS-CoV-2 from invading alveolar cells and replicating, and summarize the potential mechanisms of anti-inflammation, immune modulation, reactive oxygen species resistance, anti-thrombosis, vascular dilation, and vascular endothelium protection. Finally, the potential therapeutic effects of estrogen against COVID-19 are reviewed. This review provides insights into the role of estrogen and its use as a potential strategy to reduce the mortality associated with COVID-19, and possibly other viral infections and discusses the possible challenges and pertinent questions.

This study conducted continuous 2-years observation of CO2 fluxes by using eddy covariance method and analyzed the influences of radiation, temperature, water vapor, and wind speed on CO2 fluxes, in order to clarify the multi-temporal variation characteristics of CO2 flux during rice growing season in a wheat-rice rotation ecosystem in the Yangtze River Delta region, quantify the contribution of environmental factors to the variation of CO2 flux during rice growing season, and split the direct and indirect impacts of environmental factors on CO2 flux. The results showed that this ecosystem during the rice growing season was a carbon sink, with total carbon sequestration of 396.3 g/m² and 491.9 g/m² during the rice growing seasons in 2020 and 2021 respectively. The CO2 flux also exhibited significant diurnal variations, with a single peak curve of "U" and "V" shape, and its absorption peaks were located from 200th to 250th day of year. At different time-scale, photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) remained the main control factor of CO2 flux. As the time scale was longer, the difference between the contributions of environmental factors was reduced. Vapor pressure deficit (VPD) was also an important factor on CO2 flux, but the interaction between PPFD and VPD would inhibit the direct contribution of these two factors on CO2 flux. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[ Objective ]Effects of plant spacing and row spacing on biomass and yield characteristics of cassava were studied to provide references for optimization of cassava cultivation techniques. [ Method ]Taking cassava variety SC8 as experiment material, field tests were carried out under 4 kinds of plant spacing and row spacing, viz., equal spacing of plant and row (treatment A: 0.8 mx0.8 m), wide plant spacing with narrow row spacing (treatment B: 1.0 mx0.8 m) and wide-narrow plant spacing (treatment C:1.0 m + 0.6 m of plant spacing with 0.8 m of row spacing, treatment D: 1.0 m + 0.8 m of plant spacing with 0.6 m of row spacing). The biomass of various organs and yield of cassava were detected at seedling stage, and formation stage, expansion stage and mature stage of cassava root -tuber. The correlation among different indices were also analyzed. [ Result ]As the maturation of root tuber, different plant spacing and rows spacing treatments presented significant effects on biomass of leaf stem and root-tuber, and yield traits. Out of which, the chlorophyll content, biomass, fresh root-tuber yield, starch content and yield of treatment D was significantly higher than those of treatment A, B and C, the value were 2.43-3.03 mg/gFW, 624.3-6222.0 g/plant, 49.35 t/ha, 30.27% and 15.90 t/ha, respectively. Furthermore, the fresh root-tuber yield showed remarkably significant positive correlation or significantly positive correlation with leaf chlorophyll content at 4 stages, root fresh weight and total biomass at seedling stage, formation and expansion stage of root-tuber, and fresh weight of stem and leaf at expansion and mature stage of root-tuber. [ Conclusion ]It included that wide-narrow plant spacing with (1.0+0.8) mx0.6 m was the best for cassava planting in Hainan province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]