流感病毒
在流感季节即将到来的时候，科学家报告说他们开发出了一种新材料，用于口罩纤维、空调过滤器和空气净化器的过滤器，它们能在流感病毒到达人们的眼睛、鼻子和嘴并导致感染之前捕捉流感病毒。 这份报告发表在了美国化学学会（ACS）的《生物大分子》（Biomacromolecules）杂志上。
Xuebing Li、Peixing Wu及其同事解释说，在普通的一年中，流感导致全世界将近30万人死亡，让数以百万计的人们生病。新的病毒毒株不断出现，让疫苗和抗流感药物不起作用，这已经导致了人们迫切需求应对这种现代灾祸的新方法。因此，Li、Wu及其同事找到了一种新的方法，使用一种称为脱乙酰壳多糖的来自虾壳的物质。
这组科学家把脱乙酰壳多糖与流感病毒吸附位点联合起来。他们发现这种新型的脱乙酰壳多糖很适合附着在口罩纤维上，而且空气过滤器捕捉流感病的效率很高。他们提出，这种物质可能成为免疫接种、抗流感药物以及其他应对流感的措施的一个重要的补充。
相关英文论文摘要：
Carbohydrate-Functionalized Chitosan Fiber for Influenza Virus Capture
The high transmissibility and genetic variability of the influenza virus have made the design of effective approaches to control the infection particularly challenging. The virus surface hemagglutinin (HA) protein is responsible for the viral attachment to the host cell surface via the binding with its glycoligands, such as sialyllactose (SL), and thereby is an attractive target for antiviral designs. Herein we present the facile construction and development of two SL-incorporated chitosan-based materials, either as a water-soluble polymer or as a functional fiber, to demonstrate their abilities for viral adhesion inhibition and decontamination. The syntheses were accomplished by grafting a lactoside bearing an aldehyde-functionalized aglycone to the amino groups of chitosan or chitosan fiber followed by the enzymatic sialylation with sialyltransferase. The obtained water-soluble SL–chitosan conjugate bound HA with high affinity and inhibited effectively the viral attachment to host erythrocytes. Moreover, the SL-functionalized chitosan fiber efficiently removed the virus from an aqueous medium. The results collectively demonstrate that these potential new materials may function as the virus adsorbents for prevention and control of influenza. Importantly, these materials represent an appealing approach for presenting a protein ligand on a chitosan backbone, which is a versatile molecular platform for biofunctionalization and, thereby, can be used for not only antiviral designs, but also extensive medical development such as diagnosis and drug delivery.
英文论文链接：https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/bm200970x?prevSearch=Xuebing%2BLi&searchHistoryKey=
