Abstract
This study examined the prebiotic effects of xylooligosaccharides (XOS) on intestinal characteristics, gut microbiota, cecal short-chain fatty acids, plasma calcium metabolism, and immune ...parameters of laying hens. A total of 1,080 White Lohmann laying hens (28 wk of age) was assigned to 6 dietary treatments that included XOS at concentrations of 0, 0.01, 0.02, 0.03, 0.04, or 0.05% for 8 weeks. Each treatment had 6 replicates with 10 cages (3 birds/cage). Blood, intestinal tissues, and cecal digesta samples were collected from chickens at the end of the experiment. Villus height, crypt depth, the villus to crypt (VH: CD) ratio, and the relative length of different intestinal sections were evaluated. Additionally, the number of microorganisms and the content of short-chain fatty acids in cecal digesta samples were determined. Plasma concentrations of immunoglobulin A (IgA), immunoglobulin G, immunoglobulin M (IgM), interleukin 2 (IL-2), tumor necrosis factor-α(TNF-α), 1, 25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25(OH)2D3), calcitonin (CT), and parathyroid hormone (PTH) were also determined. The results showed that villus height and the VH: CD ratio of the jejunum were increased (linear, P < 0.01) with the increase in dietary XOS concentration, and the relative length of the jejunum (P = 0.03) was increased significantly in XOS diets. Dietary supplementation of XOS significantly increased (linear, P < 0.01) the number of Bifidobacteria in the cecum; however, total bacteria count, Lactobacillus, and Escherichia coli in the cecum were not affected by XOS supplementation. In addition, inclusion of XOS increased (linear, P < 0.01) the content of butyrate in the cecum; and the content of acetic acid showed a linear increasing trend (P = 0.053) with increasing concentration of XOS in the diets. Supplementation with XOS increased (quadratic, P < 0.05) the content of 1,25(OH)2D3 in plasma. There were no significant differences (P > 0.05) in the content of CT and PTH among dietary treatments. Furthermore, dietary XOS increased contents of IgA (linear, P < 0.05), TNF-α (linear, P < 0.05), IgM (linear, P < 0.05; quadratic, P < 0.05), and IL-2 (quadratic, P < 0.05). Taken together, it was suggested that supplemental XOS can enhance the intestinal health and immune function of laying hens by positively influencing the intestinal characteristics, gut microbiota, cecal short-chain fatty acids, and immune parameters.
Many studies have demonstrated that antiviral therapy has an important role in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of hepatitis B virus (HBV)
, including a recent article by Han et al. who ...reported that the majority of mothers stopped prophylactic telbivudine at 1 month postpartum.
However, the HBV Guidelines of the AASLD (at delivery to 3 months postpartum),
EASL (within and at 12 weeks postpartum in 2012 and 2017, respectively),
and APASL (at delivery)
had different recommendations regarding stopping time of antivirals given as prophylaxis, which result in differing durations worldwide. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
In this study, to systematically identify the most stably expressed genes for internal reference in zebrafish Danio rerio investigations, 37 D. rerio transcriptomic datasets (both RNA sequencing and ...microarray data) were collected from gene expression omnibus (GEO) database and unpublished data, and gene expression variations were analysed under three experimental conditions: tissue types, developmental stages and chemical treatments. Forty‐four putative candidate genes were identified with the c.v. <0·2 from all datasets. Following clustering into different functional groups, 21 genes, in addition to four conventional housekeeping genes (eef1a1l1, b2m, hrpt1l and actb1), were selected from different functional groups for further quantitative real‐time (qrt‐)PCR validation using 25 RNA samples from different adult tissues, developmental stages and chemical treatments. The qrt‐PCR data were then analysed using the statistical algorithm refFinder for gene expression stability. Several new candidate genes showed better expression stability than the conventional housekeeping genes in all three categories. It was found that sep15 and metap1 were the top two stable genes for tissue types, ube2a and tmem50a the top two for different developmental stages, and rpl13a and rp1p0 the top two for chemical treatments. Thus, based on the extensive transcriptomic analyses and qrt‐PCR validation, these new reference genes are recommended for normalization of D. rerio qrt‐PCR data respectively for the three different experimental conditions.
Previous studies showed conflicting results concerning the value of CBF maps obtained from arterial spin-labeling MR imaging in grading gliomas. This study was performed to investigate the ...effectiveness of CBF maps derived from 3D pseudocontinuous arterial spin-labeling in preoperatively assessing the grade, cellular proliferation, and prognosis of gliomas.
Fifty-eight patients with pathologically confirmed gliomas underwent preoperative 3D pseudocontinuous arterial spin-labeling. The receiver operating characteristic curves for parameters to distinguish high-grade gliomas from low-grade gliomas were generated. Pearson correlation analysis was used to assess the correlation among parameters. Survival analysis was conducted with Cox regression.
Both maximum CBF and maximum relative CBF were significantly higher in high-grade gliomas than in low-grade gliomas (
< .001). The areas under the curve for maximum CBF and maximum relative CBF in distinguishing high-grade gliomas from low-grade gliomas were 0.828 and 0.863, respectively. Both maximum CBF and maximum relative CBF had no correlation with the Ki-67 index in all subjects and had a moderate negative correlation with the Ki-67 index in glioblastomas (
= -0.475, -0.534, respectively). After adjustment for age, a higher maximum CBF (
= .008) and higher maximum relative CBF (
= .005) were associated with worse progression-free survival in gliomas, while a higher maximum relative CBF (
= .033) was associated with better overall survival in glioblastomas.
3D pseudocontinuous arterial spin-labeling-derived CBF maps are effective in preoperative evaluation of gliomas. Although gliomas with a higher blood flow are more malignant, glioblastomas with a lower blood flow are likely to be more aggressive.
Two experiments were conducted to determine the dietary threonine (Thr) requirement of Pekin ducks from hatch to 14 d of age. In experiment 1, practical corn-soybean meal diets were formulated to ...contain 0.78, 0.84, 0.90, 0.96, and 1.02% Thr (0.74, 0.83, 0.88, 0.92, and 1.00% Thr on an analyzed basis). In experiment 2, corn-soybean meal diets supplemented with 11 crystalline amino acids were formulated to contain 0.60, 0.70, 0.80, 0.90, 1.00, and 1.10% Thr (0.60, 0.75, 0.89, 0.95, 1.01, and 1.09% Thr on an analyzed basis). In both experiments, diets were fed to 8 replicate cages with 6 male ducks per cage. Body weight and feed intake from each cage were recorded weekly. At 14 d of age, breast meat, ileal digesta, and serum were collected to determine breast meat yield, mucin secretion, and serology parameters. In both studies, the estimated Thr requirement (expressed as % dietary Thr basis) for 14 d BW and BW gain (BWG) by quadratic broken-line (QBL) regression were similar, which were 0.87 and 0.86%, respectively. Additional measures in both experiments resulted in Thr requirements via QBL regression in rank order of crude mucin secretion < breast meat yield < serum immune activity. Summing up the estimates from both studies, the Thr requirement ranged from a low of 0.81% to maximize feed intake (FI) to a high of 1.00% to maximize serum Rb L100 by QBL regression. Correspondingly, the Thr requirement varied between a low of 0.90% to maximize crude mucin secretion on a dry matter intake (DMI) basis and a high of 0.98% to maximize feed-to-gain when using quadratic regression.
The rotavirus nonstructural glycoprotein NSP4 is an intracellular receptor that mediates the acquisition of a transient membrane envelope as subviral particles bud into the endoplasmic reticulum. ...NSP4 also causes an increase in intracellular calcium in insect cells. Purified NSP4 or a peptide corresponding to NSP4 residues 114 to 135 induced diarrhea in young (6 to 10 days old) CD1 mice. This disease response was age-dependent, dose-dependent, and specific. Electrophysiologic data from intestinal mucosa showed that the NSP4 114-135 peptide potentiates chloride secretion by a calcium-dependent signaling pathway. Diarrhea is induced when NSP4, acting as a viral enterotoxin, triggers a signal transduction pathway.
Purpose
Studies have found that erectile dysfunction (ED) may be a short-term or long-term complication in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients, but no relevant studies have completed a ...pooled analysis of this claim. The purpose of the review was to comprehensively search the relevant literature, summarize the prevalence of ED in COVID-19 patients, assess risk factors for its development, and explore the effect of the COVID-19 infection on erectile function.
Methods
Medline, Embase, and the Cochrane Library was performed from database inception until April 14, 2022. Heterogeneity was analyzed by
χ
2
tests and
I
2
was used as a quantitative test of heterogeneity. Subgroup analyses, meta-regression, and sensitivity analyses were used to analyze sources of heterogeneity.
Results
Our review included 8 studies, 4 of which functioned as a control group. There were 250,606 COVID-19 patients (mean age: 31–47.1 years, sample size: 23–246,990). The control group consisted of 10,844,200 individuals (mean age: 32.76–42.4 years, sample size 75–10,836,663). The prevalence of ED was 33% (95% CI 18–47%,
I
2
= 99.48%) in COVID-19 patients. The prevalence of ED based on the international coding of diseases (ICD-10) was 9% (95% CI 2–19%), which was significantly lower than the prevalence of ED diagnosed based on the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF-5) (46%, 95% CI 22–71%,
I
2
= 96.72%). The pooling prevalence of ED was 50% (95% CI 34–67%,
I
2
= 81.54%) for articles published in 2021, significantly higher than that for articles published in 2022 (17%, 95% CI 7–30%,
I
2
= 99.55%). The relative risk of developing ED was 2.64 times in COVID-19 patients higher than in non-COVID-19 patients (RR: 2.64, 95% CI 1.01–6.88). The GRADE-pro score showed that the mean incidence of ED events in COVID-19 patients was 1,333/50,606 (2.6%) compared with 52,937/844,200 (0.4%) in controls; the absolute impact of COVID-19 on ED was 656/100,000 (ranging from 4/100,000 to 2352/100,000). Anxiety (OR: 1.13, 95% CI 1.03–1.26,
I
2
= 0.0%) in COVID-19 patients was a risk factor for ED.
Conclusion
COVID-19 patients have a high risk and prevalence of ED, mainly driven by anxiety. Attention should be paid to patient’s erectile functioning when treating COVID-19.
PDF
