Outbreaks of avian influenza virus (AIV) infection included the spread of highly pathogenic AIV in commercial poultry and backyard flocks in the spring of 2015. This resulted in estimated losses of ...more than $8.5 million from federal government expenditures, $1.6 billion from direct losses to produces arising from destroyed turkey and chicken egg production, and economy-wide indirect costs of $3.3 billion from impacts on retailers and the food service industries. Additionally, these outbreaks resulted in the death or depopulation of nearly 50 million domestic birds. Domesticated male ferrets (Mustela putorius furo) were trained to display a specific conditioned behavior (i.e. active scratch alert) in response to feces from AIV-infected mallards in comparison to feces from healthy ducks. In order to establish that ferrets were identifying samples based on odors associated with infection, additional experiments controlled for potentially confounding effects, such as: individual duck identity, housing and feed, inoculation concentration, and day of sample collection (post-infection). A final experiment revealed that trained ferrets could detect AIV infection status even in the presence of samples from mallards inoculated with Newcastle disease virus or infectious laryngotracheitis virus. These results indicate that mammalian biodetectors are capable of discriminating the specific odors emitted from the feces of non-infected versus AIV infected mallards, suggesting that the health status of waterfowl can be evaluated non-invasively for AIV infection via monitoring of volatile fecal metabolites. Furthermore, in situ monitoring using trained biodetectors may be an effective tool for assessing population health.
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) has become a major concern among those involved in managing wild and captive cervid populations. CWD is a fatal, highly transmissible spongiform encephalopathy caused by ...an abnormally folded protein, called a prion. Prions are present in a number of tissues, including feces and urine in CWD infected animals, suggesting multiple modes of transmission, including animal-to-animal, environmental, and by fomite. CWD management is complicated by the lack of practical, non-invasive, live-animal screening tests. Recently, there has been a focus on how the volatile odors of feces and urine can be used to discriminate between infected and noninfected animals in several different species. Such a tool may prove useful in identifying potentially infected live animals, carcasses, urine, feces, and contaminated environments. Toward this goal, dogs were trained to detect and discriminate CWD infected individuals from non-infected deer in a laboratory setting. Dogs were tested with novel panels of fecal samples demonstrating the dogs’ ability to generalize a learned odor profile to novel odor samples based on infection status. Additionally, dogs were transitioned from alerting to fecal samples to an odor profile that consisted of CWD infection status with a different odor background using different sections of gastrointestinal tracts. These results indicated that canine biodetectors can discriminate the specific odors emitted from the feces of non-infected versus CWD infected white-tailed deer as well as generalizing the learned response to other tissues collected from infected individuals. These findings suggest that the health status of wild and farmed cervids can be evaluated non-invasively for CWD infection via monitoring of volatile metabolites thereby providing an effective tool for rapid CWD surveillance.
After its emergence in Wuhan, China, in late November or early December 2019, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus rapidly spread globally. Genome sequencing of ...SARS-CoV-2 allows the reconstruction of its transmission history, although this is contingent on sampling. We analyzed 453 SARS-CoV-2 genomes collected between 20 February and 15 March 2020 from infected patients in Washington state in the United States. We find that most SARS-CoV-2 infections sampled during this time derive from a single introduction in late January or early February 2020, which subsequently spread locally before active community surveillance was implemented.
Despite decades of study, it remains unclear whether there are distinct radio-loud and radio-quiet populations of quasi-stellar objects (QSOs). Early studies were limited by inhomogeneous QSO ...samples, inadequate sensitivity to probe the radio-quiet population, and degeneracy between redshift and luminosity for flux-density-limited samples. Our new 6 GHz Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA) observations allow us for the first time to obtain nearly complete (97%) radio detections in a volume-limited color-selected sample of 179 QSOs more luminous than Mi = --23 from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release Seven in the narrow redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.3. The dramatic improvement in radio continuum sensitivity made possible with the new EVLA allows us, in 35 minutes of integration, to detect sources as faint as 20 Delta *mJy, or log L 6 GHz(W Hz--1) 21.5 at z = 0.25, well below the radio luminosity, log L 6(W Hz--1) 22.5, that separates star-forming galaxies from radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGNs) driven by accretion onto a supermassive black hole. We calculate the radio luminosity function (RLF) for these QSOs using three constraints: (1) EVLA 6 GHz observations for log L 6(W Hz--1) < 23.5, (2) NRAO-VLA Sky Survey observations for log L 6(W Hz--1) > 23.5, and (3) the total number of SDSS QSOs in our volume-limited sample. We show that the RLF can be explained as a superposition of two populations, dominated by AGNs at the bright end and star formation in the QSO host galaxies at the faint end.
Changes in body odor are known to be a consequence of many diseases. Much of the published work on disease-related and body odor changes has involved parasites and certain cancers. Much less studied ...have been viral diseases, possibly due to an absence of good animal model systems. Here we studied possible alteration of fecal odors in animals infected with avian influenza viruses (AIV). In a behavioral study, inbred C57BL/6 mice were trained in a standard Y-maze to discriminate odors emanating from feces collected from mallard ducks (Anas platyrhynchos) infected with low-pathogenic avian influenza virus compared to fecal odors from non-infected controls. Mice could discriminate odors from non-infected compared to infected individual ducks on the basis of fecal odors when feces from post-infection periods were paired with feces from pre-infection periods. Prompted by this indication of odor change, fecal samples were subjected to dynamic headspace and solvent extraction analyses employing gas chromatography/mass spectrometry to identify chemical markers indicative of AIV infection. Chemical analyses indicated that AIV infection was associated with a marked increase of acetoin (3-hydroxy-2-butanone) in feces. These experiments demonstrate that information regarding viral infection exists via volatile metabolites present in feces. Further, they suggest that odor changes following virus infection could play a role in regulating behavior of conspecifics exposed to infected individuals.
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Small molecule modulators of GPR88 activity (agonists, antagonists, or modulators) are of interest as potential agents for the treatment of a variety of psychiatric disorders ...including schizophrenia. A series of phenylglycinol and phenylamine analogs have been prepared and evaluated for their GPR88 agonist activity and pharmacokinetic (PK) properties.
Left ventricular (LV) mass has been established as an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease morbidity and mortality. To account for differences in body size, a variety of factors have ...been proposed for indexing LV mass. Dual energy x-ray absorptiometry provides a measure of lean body mass which can be used as a comparison with other more clinically applicable methods of standardization. The study included 192 subjects (100 male, 103 white) aged 6 to 17 years. Lean body mass was determined by dual energy x-ray absorptiometry and LV mass was calculated from M-mode echocardiographic measurements. There were significant differences by gender (males 98.7 g, females 80.3g, p < 0.001), but not race, for unindexed LV mass. Indexing LV mass by lean body mass eliminated the difference by gender. Log-log regression analysis revealed that the optimal height exponent for indexing LV mass was height
3 (95% confidence interval, 2.8 to 3.1). LV mass/height
3 provided the most consistently high intraclass correlation with LV mass/lean body mass versus indexing with body surface area, height, height
2, and height
2.7 across the 4 race/gender groups. LV mass indexed by height
3 eliminated differences in LV mass by gender (males 26.1 ± 4.72 g/m
3, females 25.5 ± 4.8 g/m
3, p = NS). The proposed method for indexing LV mass by height
3 should be useful in the clinical setting. The 90th and 95th percentiles of LV mass/height
3 provide cutpoints for determining the presence of LV hypertrophy in children and adolescents.
Left ventricular hypertrophy has been established as an independent risk factor for the development of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. It is clear that left ventricular mass increases during ...childhood and adolescence with body growth. The extent to which other factors, such as obesity, stage of sexual maturation, and level of blood pressure, determine left ventricular mass has been controversial.
The study was a cross-sectional evaluation of the relationship of left ventricular mass determined by echocardiography with lean body mass and fat mass determined by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry, which is the most valid and reliable method for determination of body composition in children and adolescents. The relationship of left ventricular mass with the stage of sexual maturation and with systolic and diastolic blood pressure was also evaluated. Two hundred one subjects (105 boys, 96 girls; 103 white and 98 black) 6 to 17 years old were studied. Age (r = .72), height (r = .81), weight (r = .84), body surface area (r = .87), sexual maturation (r = .75), lean body mass (r = .86), fat mass (r = .54), systolic BP (r = .58), and diastolic BP (r = .48) were all univariate correlates of left ventricular mass. In a multiple regression analysis, only lean body mass, fat mass, and systolic blood pressure were statistically significant independent correlates of left ventricular mass. Lean body mass alone explained 75% of the variance of left ventricular mass, whereas fat mass and systolic blood pressure explained only 1.5% and 0.5% of the variance, respectively. Lean body mass was the strongest determinant of left ventricular mass in all four race-sex groups.
This study provides an opportunity to separate the effects on left ventricular mass of lean body mass resulting from linear growth from those of fat mass resulting from obesity. Lean body mass, fat mass, and systolic blood pressure all have a statistically significant independent association with left ventricular mass, suggesting that all three play an important biological role in determining left ventricular mass. However, fat mass and systolic blood pressure have only a small impact on left ventricular mass. This indicates that fat mass and blood pressure would be expected to be of only minor clinical importance in determining left ventricular mass in normal children and adolescents.
Abstract Histophilus somni causes bovine pneumonia and septicemia, but protective immune responses are not well understood and immunodiagnostic methods are not well defined. We previously showed that ...antibody to a new virulence factor, IbpA, neutralizes cytotoxicity and immunization with a recombinant IbpA domain protects calves against experimental H. somni pneumonia. To further define immune responses to IbpA, we determined isotypic serum antibody responses to three IbpA domains (IbpA3, an N-terminal coiled coil region; IbpA5, a central region of 200 bp repeats and IbpA DR2, a C-terminal cytotoxic domain). ELISA was used to quantitate IgG1 or IgG2 antibodies to each of the IbpA subunits as well as H. somni whole cells (WCs) or culture supernatant (SUP). Calves experimentally infected with H. somni and monitored for up to 10 weeks had the least “0 time” (background) antibody levels to IbpA5, as well as the earliest and highest responses of greatest duration to the IbpA5 subunit. Responses of these calves were high to WC or SUP antigens but with higher “0 time” (background) antibody levels. We concluded that IbpA5 may be a useful immunodiagnostic antigen. Calves immunized with H. somni WC vaccine had antibody responses to WC antigens, but not to IbpA subunits before challenge. After challenge with H. somni , vaccinated calves had slight anamnestic responses to IbpA3 and IbpA5, but not to IbpA DR2. Since IbpA DR2 is a protective antigen, the data suggest the IbpA DR2 would be a useful addition to H. somni vaccines.
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