Effect of fast and slow-acting bait toxicants on tawny crazy ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) foraging and nesting in the field.

Tawny crazy ants (TCAs), Nylanderia fulva (Mayr) are an invasive species that develops extremely large populations that overrun landscapes. Control measures frequently rely on spraying contact insecticides, which often are inadequate. To provide insights for utilizing baits for their control, TCA foraging behavior was examined on liquid ant bait formulations that contained either fast-acting dinotefuran or slow-acting disodium octaborate tetrahydrate (DOT), and the impacts of these baits were assessed.

Transfer RNA-derived fragment production in calves challenged with or co-infected with bovine viral diarrhea virus and in several tissues and blood.

Understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying immune response can allow informed decisions in drug or vaccine development, and aid in the identification of biomarkers to predict exposure or evaluate treatment efficacy. The objective of this study was to identify differentially expressed transfer RNA-derived fragments (tRFs) in calves challenged with () or co-infected with and bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV). Serum, white blood cells (WBC), liver, mesenteric lymph node (MLN), tracheal-bronchial lymph node (TBLN), spleen, and thymus were collected from Control ( = 2), (MB;  = 3), and co-infected (Dual; = 3) animals, and small RNAs extracted for sequencing.

Outbreak of epizootic hemorrhagic disease in captive reindeer ().

In September 2020, an outbreak of epizootic hemorrhagic disease occurred in captive reindeer () and was associated with neurological signs and mortality. Four reindeer died or were euthanized after acute illness over a 12-day period. Affected reindeer displayed abnormal behavior, neurologic signs, lethargy, and/or lameness.

Effect of Irrigation on the Control of Red Imported Fire Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) by Water-Resistant and Standard Fire Ant Baits.

The red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta (Buren), is an invasive pest of agricultural, urban, and natural areas. It is also considered a public health pest due to its painful stings. While it can be efficiently controlled by commercially available fire ant baits formulated with a corn-grit carrier, rain or irrigation is thought to degrade the carrier, compromising bait effectiveness.

Using radar plots for performance benchmarking at patient and hospital levels using an Australian orthopaedics dataset.

This study will highlight the diagnostic potential that radar plots display for reporting on performance benchmarking from patient admissions to hospital for surgical procedures. Two drawbacks of radar plots - the presence of missing information and ordering of indicators - are addressed. Ten different orthopaedic surgery procedures were considered in this study.

Managed Fire Frequency Significantly Influences the Litter Arthropod Community in Longleaf Pine Flatwoods.

Frequent prescribed burns are essential to pine forest restoration and management. Research studies have assessed effects of prescribed fire and burn frequency on plants and vertebrates, but impacts of fire on terrestrial invertebrate communities are still poorly understood. This case study investigated effects of burning frequency on species richness and community composition of social insects (ants, Hymenoptera: Formicidae and termites, Blattodea: Isoptera) in fire-managed Southern longleaf pine flatwoods in central Florida.

QTL mapping of freezing tolerance: links to fitness and adaptive trade-offs.

Local adaptation, defined as higher fitness of local vs. nonlocal genotypes, is commonly identified in reciprocal transplant experiments. Reciprocally adapted populations display fitness trade-offs across environments, but little is known about the traits and genes underlying fitness trade-offs in reciprocally adapted populations.

HIV-1 drug resistance in the iPrEx preexposure prophylaxis trial.

Background: The iPrEx study demonstrated that combination oral emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (FTC/TDF) as preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) protects against HIV acquisition in men who have sex with men and transgender women. Selection for drug resistance could offset PrEP benefits.

Methods: Phenotypic and genotypic clinical resistance assays characterized major drug resistant mutations.

Improving the efficiency of telephone-based disease management programs: getting the population and the timing right using hospital admission data.

Telephone-based disease management (DM) programs can improve health outcomes and provide a positive return on investment to funders. However, there is scant evidence about how to use hospital admission episode data to identify patients who are most likely to participate in a DM program. The objective of this study was to use hospital admission episode data held by health insurers to determine those factors that predict members with chronic disease joining and remaining in a DM program for at least 6 months.

HIV RNA level in early infection is predicted by viral load in the transmission source.

Objective: HIV-1 viral load in early infection predicts the risk of subsequent disease progression but the factors responsible for the differences between individuals in viral load during this period have not been fully identified. We sought to determine the relationship between HIV-1 RNA levels in the source partner and recently infected recipient partners within transmission pairs.

Methods: We recruited donor partners of persons who presented with acute or recent (<6 months) HIV infection.

Relationship of preventive health practices and health literacy: a national study.

Objective: To identify relationships between the health literacy and self-reported preventive health practices of US adults.

Methods: Measured health literacy and preventive health practices for a nationally representative sample of adults (N = 18,100) and conducted probit regression analyses after controlling for age, gender, race/ethnicity, poverty level, insurance status, self-reported health status, and oral reading fluency.

Results: Low literacy was associated with a decreased likelihood of using most preventive health measures under study for adults aged 65 and older, but not for adults of 2 younger age groups.

Multiple roles for the receptor tyrosine kinase axl in tumor formation.

A focus of contemporary cancer therapeutic development is the targeting of both the transformed cell and the supporting cellular microenvironment. Cell migration is a fundamental cellular behavior required for the complex interplay between multiple cell types necessary for tumor development. We therefore developed a novel retroviral-based screening technology in primary human endothelial cells to discover genes that control cell migration.

Evaluation of Chlamydia pneumoniae and Mycoplasma pneumoniae as etiologic agents of persistent cough in adolescents and adults.

Chlamydia pneumoniae and Mycoplasma pneumoniae were evaluated as agents of persistent cough in adolescents and adults (n = 491). Tests of 473 respiratory specimens by culture or PCR or both identified four episodes (0.8%) of M.

Echovirus hepatic failure in infancy: report of four cases with speculation on the pathogenesis.

Disseminated echovirus infection with fulminant hepatic failure occurs almost exclusively in newborns. Although a relatively uncommon condition, it is on occasion associated with neonatal death accompanied by diffuse and extensive hemorrhagic necrosis of the liver and adrenals as the defining finding. We report four cases of severe systemic neonatal echovirus infection and present histologic and clinical evidence to demonstrate the two histologic patterns of liver involvement; intravascular coagulation in the early clinical course and a veno-occlusive component in later stages of the disease.

Susceptibility of rat-derived cells to replication by human immunodeficiency virus type 1.

Progress in developing a small animal model of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) disease would greatly facilitate studies of transmission, pathogenesis, host immune responses, and antiviral strategies. In this study, we have explored the potential of rats as a susceptible host. In a single replication cycle, rat cell lines Rat2 and Nb2 produced infectious virus at levels 10- to 60-fold lower than those produced by human cells.

Molecular function of the CD4 D1 domain in coreceptor-mediated entry by HIV type 1.

The surface molecule CD4 plays a key role in initiating cellular entry by the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), and it is now recognized as acting synergistically with select chemokine receptors (coreceptors) in the infection process. The present study was undertaken to determine whether the extracellular region of CD4 is sufficient to induce fusion of HIV-1 virions with target cells in the absence of its anchoring function. Using pseudotype reporter viruses to quantitate infection, soluble CD4 (sCD4) was tested for its ability to induce fusion by viruses utilizing CCR5 as their coreceptor.

Vascular and metabolic reserve in Alzheimer's disease.

Vascular and metabolic reserve were analyzed in probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD). Cerebral blood flow (CBF), cerebral blood volume (CBV), cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen (CMRO(2)), and oxygen extraction fraction (OEF) were measured quantitatively with positron emission tomography (PET). Vascular reactivity (VR) was also calculated by comparing the CBF during 5% CO(2) inhalation with the CBF during normal breathing.

Eliciting hyperacute xenograft response to treat human cancer: alpha(1,3) galactosyltransferase gene therapy.

Xenograft hyperacute rejection in humans occurs as a secondary response to a cellular glycosylation incompatibility with most non-human mammalian species. A key component of hyperacute rejection, alpha(1,3)galactosyl (agal) epitopes present on the surface of most non-human mammal cells, is bound by host anti-agal IgG antibodies leading to the activation of complement and, cellular lysis (1). The enzyme causing specific glycosylation patterns, alpha(1,3)galactosyltransferase [alpha(1,3)GT], directs the addition of agal to N-acetyl glucosamine residues in the trans Golgi apparatus in most mammalian species including Mus musculus, but not old world primates, apes or humans.

Rabbit cells expressing human CD4 and human CCR5 are highly permissive for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 infection.

To evaluate the feasibility of using transgenic rabbits expressing CCR5 and CD4 as a small-animal model of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV) disease, we examined whether the expression of the human chemokine receptor (CCR5) and human CD4 would render a rabbit cell line (SIRC) permissive to HIV replication. Histologically, SIRC cells expressing CD4 and CCR5 formed multinucleated cells (syncytia) upon exposure to BaL, a macrophagetropic strain of HIV that uses CCR5 for cell entry. Intracellular viral capsid p24 staining showed abundant viral gene expression in BaL-infected SIRC cells expressing CD4 and CCR5.

Sequence, structure, and chromosomal mapping of the mouse Lgals6 gene, encoding galectin-6.

In the accompanying paper (Gitt, M. A., Colnot, C.

Selective employment of chemokine receptors as human immunodeficiency virus type 1 coreceptors determined by individual amino acids within the envelope V3 loop.

The chemokine receptor CCR5 acts as an essential cofactor for cell entry by macrophage-tropic human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) strains, whereas CXCR4 acts as an essential cofactor for T-cell-line-adapted strains. We demonstrated that the specific amino acids in the V3 loop of the HIV-1 envelope protein that determine cellular tropism also regulate chemokine coreceptor preference for cell entry by the virus. Further, a strong correlation was found between HIV-1 strains classified as syncytium inducing in standard assays and those using CXCR4 as a coreceptor.

Molecular uncoupling of C-C chemokine receptor 5-induced chemotaxis and signal transduction from HIV-1 coreceptor activity.

The C-C chemokine receptor 5 (CCR5) plays a crucial role in facilitating the entry of macrophage-tropic strains of the HIV-1 into cells, but the mechanism of this phenomenon is completely unknown. To explore the role of CCR5-derived signal transduction in viral entry, we introduced mutations into two cytoplasmic domains of CCR5 involved in receptor-mediated function. Truncation of the terminal carboxyl-tail to eight amino acids or mutation of the highly conserved aspartate-arginine-tyrosine, or DRY, sequence in the second cytoplasmic loop of CCR5 effectively blocked chemokine-dependent activation of classic second messengers, intracellular calcium fluxes, and the cellular response of chemotaxis.

Multiple extracellular elements of CCR5 and HIV-1 entry: dissociation from response to chemokines.

The human beta-chemokine receptor CCR5 is an important cofactor for entry of human immunodeficiency virus-type 1 (HIV-1). The murine form of CCR5, despite its 82 percent identity to the human form, was not functional as an HIV-1 coreceptor. HIV-1 entry function could be reconstituted by fusion of various individual elements derived from the extracellular region of human CCR5 onto murine CCR5.

Centrifugal enhancement of retroviral mediated gene transfer.

Centrifugation has been used for many years to enhance infection of cultured cells with a variety of different types of viruses, but it has only recently been demonstrated to be effective for retroviruses (Ho et al. (1993) J. Leukocyte Biol.