Seroprevalence, Isolation, Genotyping, and Pathogenicity of Strains from Sheep in China.

is an important cause of reproductive failure in small ruminants that also poses a risk to consumers who consume undercooked meat. However, little is known about sheep toxoplasmosis in China for the world. Therefore, this study was conducted to assess the prevalence of infection in sheep from China, to isolate via bioassay in mice and to evaluate the virulence of the isolated based on vero cell invasion and mice.

Marek's disease virus-encoded analog of microRNA-155 activates the oncogene c-Myc by targeting LTBP1 and suppressing the TGF-β signaling pathway.

Marek's disease virus (MDV) is a representative alpha herpes virus able to induce rapid-onset T-cell lymphoma in its natural host and regarded as an ideal model for the study of virus-induced tumorigenesis. Recent studies have shown that the mdv1-miR-M4-5p, a viral analog of cellular miR-155, is critical for MDV׳s oncogenicity. However, the precise mechanism whereby it was involved in MD lymphomagenesis remained unknown.

Chicken intestine defensins activated murine peripheral blood mononuclear cells through the TLR4-NF-kappaB pathway.

Defensins serve as alarm signals in mobilizing the immune system and activating the innate and adaptive immune responses. In order to investigate whether avian defensins could activate monocytes of another species, and whether chicken defensins could modulate or amplify the adaptive immune responses of murine through the TLR-NF-kappaB pathway, the relationship between the chicken intestinal defensin AvBD13 and TLR4 in murine peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) was explored in vitro. Monocytes were stimulated with AvBD13 (1 microg/mL).