Potential negative impacts and low effectiveness in the use of African annual killifish in the biocontrol of aquatic mosquito larvae in temporary water bodies.

Commentary and discussion on a recent paper promoting the use of Nothobranchius guentheri, a small African annual fish from the Island of Zanzibar as a tool to control mosquito larvae in temporary bodies of freshwater throughout Africa is presented.Arguments on major points; (1) expected low success of annual fish introductions, (2) low success of mosquito control in the field, (3) ecological threats, and (4) ethical issues are detailed.Despite serious problems with mosquito-borne diseases in tropical Africa and elsewhere, we encourage responsible means of biological control of parasite vectors.

Clinical outcome of nonnasal chondrosarcoma in dogs: thirty-one cases (1986-2003).

Objective: To evaluate metastatic rate and survival times of dogs with chondrosarcoma of nonnasal bony sites treated by wide surgical excision.

Study Design: Retrospective study.

Animals: Dogs (n=31) with chondrosarcoma.

Eimeria macusaniensis infection in 15 llamas and 34 alpacas.

Case Description: 15 llamas and 34 alpacas between 3 weeks and 18 years old with fecal oocysts or intestinal coccidial stages morphologically consistent with Eimeria macusaniensis were examined. Nineteen of the camelids were admitted dead, and 30 were admitted alive. Camelids admitted alive accounted for 5.

Development of polyglucosan inclusions in skeletal muscle.

Muscle samples from 24 horses with polysaccharide storage myopathy were stained with periodic acid-Schiff (PAS) stain and were immunostained for ubiquitin. Abnormalities detected with PAS stain were coarse granular cytoplasmic aggregates of amylase sensitive glycogen, subsarcolemmal aggregates of glycogen, central amylase sensitive bodies, and a variety of subsarcolemmal to intracytoplasmic amylase resistant polyglucosan inclusions. All amylase resistant inclusions were positive for ubiquitin.

Writing-skills development in the health professions.

Background: Studies have found that students in the medical professions often lack the writing skills required during their education and career. One contributing factor to this deficiency is that writing tends to be discipline specific, rather than requiring general skills acquired in undergraduate schools.

Purpose: To determine the extent to which a rigorous writing exercise impacted the quality of students' medical writing based on a specified rubric.

Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation does not restore dystrophin expression in Duchenne muscular dystrophy dogs.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is caused by mutations in the dystrophin gene on the X-chromosome that result in skeletal and cardiac muscle damage and premature death. Studies in mice, including the mdx mouse model of DMD, have demonstrated that circulating bone marrow-derived cells can participate in skeletal muscle regeneration, but the potential clinical utility of treating human DMD by allogeneic marrow transplantation from a healthy donor remains unknown. To assess whether allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) provides clinically relevant levels of donor muscle cell contribution in dogs with canine X-linked muscular dystrophy (c-xmd), 7 xmd dogs were given hematopoietic cell (HC) transplants from nonaffected littermates.

Biochemical evaluation of mitochondrial respiratory chain enzymes in canine skeletal muscle.

Objective: To perform respiratory chain enzymatic activity assays on canine skeletal muscle biopsy specimens and establish reference range values of skeletal muscle enzyme activities for dogs.

Sample Population: Biopsy specimens from the vastus lateralis muscle were obtained from 24 dogs (8 sexually intact males and 14 sexually intact females) ranging from 15 months to 6 years of age.

Procedure: Mean values of citrate synthase, cytochrome-c oxidase, succinate dehydrogenase, succinate dehydrogenase-cytochrome-c reductase, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) dehydrogenase, and NADH dehydrogenase-cytochrome-c reductase activities were established by use of 6 standard spectrophotometric assays for respiratory chain enzyme analysis.