Schackwaddell9065

Toxoplasma gondii infections are common in humans and animals worldwide. The present review summarizes worldwide information on the prevalence of clinical and subclinical infections, epidemiology, and genetic diversity of T. gondii in horses, donkeys and other equids in the past decade. This review will be of interest to biologists, parasitologists, veterinarians, and public health workers.The transmission of antimicrobial resistance genes from enteric bacteria from the animal reservoir to indigenous bacteria in meat is a serious concern, as it can contribute to human exposure to antimicrobial resistance genes. The aim of this study was to investigate plasmid-mediated horizontal transfer of antimicrobial resistance genes from Escherichia coli to indigenous environmental bacteria in minced pork stored at 10 and 37 °C. E. coli MG1555 containing a gfp-tagged plasmid carrying tetracycline, kanamycin and streptomycin resistance genes was used as the donor with the indigenous bacteria in minced pork acting as potential recipients. The results demonstrated that enteric members of the pork meat microbiota were able to receive gfp-plasmids from the E. coli donor strain at both 10 and 37 °C. The majority of transconjugants were identified as Serratia spp. through sequencing of their 16S rRNA genes. This indicates that environmental Serratia spp. and other Enterobacteriaceae may play a role as carrier of antimicrobial resistance genes through the meat production chain to the consumer.

Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae (M. ovi) is the causative agent of chronic non-progressive pneumonia in sheep, goats, bighorn, and wild small ruminants. However, the mechanism of infection and immune response to M. ovi remain unclear. Invading microbes express lipid-associated membrane proteins (LAMPs) on the cell surface that interact with host cells to facilitate infection, and are thus the major molecules recognised by the host immune system. Upon LAMP recognition, Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) and NLRP3 inflammasome sense the pathogens and signalling pathways for cytokine secretion. In this study, we investigated whether M. ovi and M. ovi-derived LAMPs are immuno-biologically active compounds capable of activating mouse peritoneal macrophages and explored the underlying mechanism.

After infection of wild-type mice with M. ovi, the expression of TLR2 and NLRP3 at the transcriptional and translational levels was determined with reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and flow cytometry. In addition, the cytokine levels and associated pathways were detected in infected wild-type, Tlr2

, and Nlrp3

mice via enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays and western blotting. The nuclear factor (NF)-κB and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signalling pathways were found to mediate the expression of inflammatory cytokines in M. ovi or M. ovi-derived LAMP-infected peritoneal macrophages, and cytokines were not induced in Tlr2

and/or Nlrp3

macrophages.

Host cytokine production is activated in response to M. ovi-derived LAMPs through the NF-κB and MAPK signalling pathway via TLR2.

Host cytokine production is activated in response to M. ovi-derived LAMPs through the NF-κB and MAPK signalling pathway via TLR2.Recombinant canine interferon-γ (rc-IFNγ; InterdogⓇ) was exclusively approved as a therapeutic for canine atopic dermatitis. However, it has been used off-label for the treatment of canine cancer. We examined the inhibitory effect of rc-IFNγ on the growth of canine tumor cell lines and analyzed its mechanism of action. Three (CTB-p, CTB-m, and CNM-m) out of seven mammary gland tumor cell lines and two (VIMC and CoMS) out of four mast cell tumor cell lines showed remarkable growth inhibition after treatment with rc-IFNγ. However, one (CLBL-1) out of nine lymphoma cell lines showed a significant amount of cell death. Using CTB-p and CTB-m cell lines, we showed that STAT1 was essential for inducing the growth inhibitory effect of rc-IFNγ. Although rc-IFNγ induced G1 growth arrest in CTB-p cell line, treatment with rc-IFNγ did not alter the expression of cell cycle regulatory proteins. In this study, we observed direct cytotoxicity or cytostatic effects of rc-IFNγ in canine tumor cell lines. However, the detailed mechanisms responsible for these effects need to be elucidated in the future.Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) is a causative pathogen of PRRS that has generated a serious adverse impact on current global pork production. PRRSV primarily infects pig alveolar macrophages, but poor induction of innate immunity after infection often leads to more severe complications. Defining the functional role of each PRRSV non structural protein (NSP) within host cells might be helpful in understanding how PRRSV induces poor innate immunity in host cells. NSP1 of PRRSV exhibits papain like cysteine protease activity and may therefore modulate host cell signaling by degrading a target protein in host cells during infection. In this study, we demonstrated that NSP1 of PRRSV-2 indirectly blocked extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) signaling in polyriboinosinic polyribocytidylic acid (Poly IC) stimulated pig macrophages (3D4/31 cells). ERK which belongs to the mitogen-activated protein kinase family mediates many biological processes including inflammatory responses during viral infection. The blocking of ERK signaling by NSP1 of PRRSV-2 further leads to the transcriptional inhibition of inflammatory enhancers, cellular communication network factor 1 and 2 (ccn1 and ccn2) through down-regulation of v-fos FBJ murine osteosarcoma viral oncogene homolog (fos) and fosb, the component of activating protein-1 (AP-1) which is an ERK downstream transcription factor. Therefore, NSP1 of PRRSV-2 inhibited the mRNA transcription of ccn1 and ccn2 by blocking the ERK-AP-1 axis in Poly IC stimulated pig macrophages. These results provide additional evidence supporting that NSP1 has anti-inflammatory function during PRRSV-2 infection.To explore the effect of digestion on pea hull phenolics, an in vitro model consisting sequential oral, gastric, small and large intestinal digestions was applied to pea hulls. The phenolic content and antioxidant activity of the samples collected from these digestion steps were determined. BMS202 The phenolics in these samples generally decreased in the order of sequential digestions in both red and yellow hull series, and no significant increase of total phenolic content (TPC), total flavonoid content (TFC) and individual phenolics were found in most digested groups compared with the corresponding control groups. The antioxidant activity of the samples generally changed according to their TPC and strong correlations (r > 0.92, p less then 0.001) existed between them in red hull series. The present study implies that phenolics are released gradually from pea hulls during in vitro digestion and their release was mainly due to the pH of the digestion.