Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is a therapeutic modality for treating neonatal calf diarrhea. Several practical barriers, including donor selection, fecal collection, and a limited timeframe for FMT, are the main constraints to using fresh feces for implementing on-farm FMT. We report the utility of FMT with pretreated ready-to-use frozen (F) or freeze-dried (FD) microorganisms for treating calf diarrhea.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Conventional chemotherapy is based on the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) and requires treatment-free intervals to restore normal host cells. MTD chemotherapy may induce angiogenesis or immunosuppressive cell infiltration during treatment-free intervals. Low-dose metronomic (LDM) chemotherapy is defined as frequent administration at lower doses and causes less inflammatory change, whereas MTD chemotherapy induces an inflammatory change.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFive pigs experimentally infected with Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae serovar 15 isolated in our previous study were pathologically examined. One pig died at 2 days post inoculation (dpi) and four pigs were euthanized at 7 dpi. Autopsy revealed fibrinohemorrhagic pleuropneumonia in all pigs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Recipient depression before kidney transplantation needs to be treated to reduce poor posttransplant outcomes. For recipients who receive living kidney transplantation, feelings of guilt for potential donors may be factors related to the presence of depressive symptoms. This study aimed to examine the association between recipients' feelings of guilt for the donor and depressive symptoms before living kidney transplantation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Establishing fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) to prevent multifactorial diarrhea in calves is challenging because of the differences in farm management practices, the lack of optimal donors, and recipient selection. In this study, the underlying factors of successful and unsuccessful FMT treatment cases are elucidated, and the potential markers for predicting successful FMT are identified using fecal metagenomics via 16S rRNA gene sequencing, fecal metabolomics via capillary electrophoresis time-of-flight mass spectrometry, and machine learning approaches.
Results: Specifically, 20 FMT treatment cases, in which feces from healthy donors were intrarectally transferred into recipient diarrheal calves, were conducted with a success rate of 70%.
Tumor endothelial cells (TEC) lining tumor blood vessels actively contribute to tumor progression and metastasis. In addition to tumor cells, TEC may develop drug resistance during cancer treatment, allowing the tumor cells to survive chemotherapy and metastasize. We previously reported that TECs resist paclitaxel treatment via upregulation of ABCB1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCanine Lafora disease (LD) is an autosomal recessive genetic disorder causing nonfatal structural epilepsy, mainly affecting miniature wirehaired dachshunds. Repeat expansion in the EPM2B gene causes a functional impairment of the ubiquitin ligase malin which regulates glycogen metabolism. Abnormally structured glycogen accumulates and develop polyglucosan bodies predominantly in the central nervous system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo test the existence of the salt bridge and stability of the HIV-1 p17 matrix protein, an E12A (mutated at helix 1) was established to abolish possible electrostatic interactions. The chemical shift perturbation from the comparison between wild type and E12A suggested the existence of an electrostatic interaction in wild type between E12 and H89 (located in helix 4). Unexpectedly, the studies using urea denaturation indicated that the E12A substitution slightly stabilized the protein.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIt has been described that tumor progression has many similarities to inflammation and wound healing in terms of the signaling processes involved. Among biological responses, angiogenesis, which is necessary for tumor progression and metastasis, is a common hallmark; therefore, tumor blood vessels have been considered as important therapeutic targets in anticancer therapy. We focused on pentraxin 3 (PTX3), which is a marker of cancer-related inflammation, but we found no reports on its expression and function in tumor blood vessels.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMelissococcus plutonius is an important pathogen that causes European foulbrood (EFB) in honeybee larvae. Recently, we discovered a group of M. plutonius strains that are phenotypically and genetically distinct from other strains.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRetromer is a complex of proteins that functions in the endosome-to-Golgi retrieval cargo transport pathway. VPS35 works as the central subunit of retromer to recognize the cargos and binds with VPS29 and VPS26 via distinct domains. We show that deficiency of VPS35 or VPS29 accompanies degradation of other subunits, whereas VPS26 deficiency had no effect on VPS29 and VPS35 levels.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this study, we evaluated the efficacy of a novel minipig strain, the Microminipig (MMPig), as an animal model for studying the pharmacokinetics of a mixture of 10 perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs). After a single oral dose was given, we found that the blood depuration of PFAAs (blood t1/2), which we calculated using first-order elimination curves, ranged from 1.6 to 86.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA crucial event in the initiation of many bacterial infections is the adherence of the bacteria to host cells, and bacterial surface structures and their interactions with host cell receptors play an important role in this process. Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae is the causative agent of swine erysipelas, which may cause acute septicemia or chronic endocarditis and polyarthritis. To study the pathogenic mechanism of the widespread vascular disease observed in the acute form of swine erysipelas, we investigated the role of phosphorylcholine (PCho), a component of the E.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStreptococcus suis, an emerging zoonotic pathogen, is responsible for various diseases in swine and humans. Most S. suis strains from clinical cases possess a group of capsular polysaccharide synthesis (cps) genes and phenotypically express capsular polysaccharides (CPs).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTonsils are important organs for mucosal immunity and are gateways for various pathogens, including bacteria and viruses. The purpose of the present study was to reveal how Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae, the causative agent of swine erysipelas, invades the mucosal epithelium of the tonsils of pigs. Two germ-free piglets were orally infected with E.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBeta amyloid (Aβ) deposits are seen in aged individuals in many of the mammalian species that possess the same Aβ amino acid sequence as humans. Conversely, neurofibrillary tangles (NFT), the other hallmark lesion of Alzheimer's disease (AD), are extremely rare in these animals. We detected Aβ deposits in the brains of Tsushima leopard cats (Prionailurus bengalensis euptilurus) that live exclusively on Tsushima Island, Japan.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStreptococcus suis, particularly serotype 2, is a pathogen of both pigs and humans associated with a wide range of diseases, including meningitis, septicaemia and endocarditis. Among the genes in the capsular polysaccharide biosynthesis (cps) locus, cps2J exists only in the serotype 2 and 1/2 strains; therefore, cps2J-positive strains are suspected to have capsules of serotype 2 or 1/2. Coagglutination using antiserotype 1 and antiserotype 2 sera and/or transmission electron microscopy analysis of 288 cps2J-positive isolates from pigs showed that 32 (100 %) isolates from meningitis were encapsulated, whereas 86 (34 %) of 256 isolates from endocarditis were unencapsulated, indicating that capsule loss often occurred in the isolates from endocarditis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA stillborn calf at 259 days of gestation was examined. The dam showed no clinical signs of disease, and the stillbirth was occurred sporadically and were characterized by focal necrosis surrounded by infiltration of the cells such as macrophages and multinucleated giant cells. The lesions were observed systemically.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe genome of the cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942 contains four dnaJ homologs, which are classified into three types based on domain structure. Among these, dnaJ1, dnaJ2, and dnaJ3 are essential for normal growth, and hence we analyzed them with a view to characterizing their specificity. Expression analysis indicated that dnaJ2, which encodes type II DnaJ protein, exhibited typical responses to heat and high-light stresses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe analyzed the stress responses of three dnaK homologues (dnaK1, dnaK2, and dnaK3) in the cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942. A reporter assay showed that under stress conditions the expression of only the dnaK2 gene was induced, suggesting a functional assignment of these homologues. RNA blot hybridization indicated a typical stress response of dnaK2 to heat and high-light stress.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe inotropic response to muscarinic receptor stimulation of isolated chick ventricular myocardium was examined at various developmental stages, and the receptor subtype involved was pharmacologically characterized. In embryonic chick ventricles, carbachol (CCh) produced positive inotropy at micromolar concentrations. In hatched chick ventricles, CCh produced negative inotropy at nanomolar concentrations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThree dnaK and four dnaJ genes have been identified in the genome of cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942. Our comprehensive analysis of yeast two-hybrid screening revealed a specific interaction among DnaK2, DnaJ2, and RNase E, an essential endoribonuclease. We examined the effects of DnaK2 and DnaJ2 on RNase E activity by monitoring the digestion of psbAII transcript in vitro.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942, we observed that htpG-overexpression caused remarkable growth inhibition. In addition, subcellular fractionation experiments showed that HtpG was localized in the membrane fraction. To understand its function in cyanobacteria, we carried out yeast two-hybrid screening to identify specific proteins interacting with HtpG, and found out, HemE, uroporphyrinogen decarboxylase.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe technology is now available for commercial cloning of farm animals for food production, but is the food safe for consumers? Here, we provide data on >100 parameters that compare the composition of meat and milk from beef and dairy cattle derived from cloning to those of genetic- and breed-matched control animals from conventional reproduction. The cloned animals and the comparators were managed under the same conditions and received the same diet. The composition of the meat and milk from the clones were largely not statistically different from those of matched comparators, and all parameters examined were within the normal industry standards or previously reported values.
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