Report of outbreaks of classical scrapie in Dorper sheep and associated prion protein gene polymorphisms in affected flocks.

Scrapie is an infectious neurodegenerative disease affecting sheep and goats, related with conformational alteration of an isoform of the prion protein that leads to deposition and aggregation in the host's central nervous system. Occurrence of the natural disease can be influenced by host genetic factors, such as a single nucleotide polymorphism of the prion protein gene. This study reports three scrapie-affected Dorper flocks located on three different farms in Brazil.

Genetic variability in Microsporum canis isolated from cats, dogs and humans in Brazil.

Dermatophytosis caused by Microsporum canis is a heterogeneous disease with variable clinical manifestations. M. canis is a zoophilic dermatophyte and the most frequent fungi isolated from dogs, cats and children in Brazil.

Development of a real-time polymerase chain reaction assay for single nucleotide polymorphism genotyping codons 136, 154, and 171 of the prnp gene and application to Brazilian sheep herds.

Scrapie is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy of sheep and goats and is associated with the deposition of an abnormal isoform of prion protein (PrP(sc)). This isoform presents an altered conformation that leads to its aggregation in the host's central nervous and lymphoreticular systems. A predisposition to the prion-agent infection can be influenced by specific genotypes that are related to polymorphisms in the ovine prnp gene.

The PII superfamily revised: a novel group and evolutionary insights.

The PII proteins compose a superfamily of signal transducers with fundamental roles in the nitrogen metabolism of prokaryotic organisms. They act at different cellular targets, such as ammonia transporters, enzymes, and transcriptional factors. These proteins are small, highly conserved, and well distributed among prokaryotes.

Evaluation of PCR based on gene apxIVA associated with 16S rDNA sequencing for the identification of Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae and related species.

The pleuropneumonia caused by Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae (App) is one the most important swine respiratory diseases. Biochemical and serological tests are widely applied for App diagnosis and characterization. However, in some isolates, conflicting results are found.

Automated annotation of keywords for proteins related to mycoplasmataceae using machine learning techniques.

Motivation: With the increase in submission of sequences to public databases, the curators of these are not able to cope with the amount of information. The motivation of this work is to generate a system for automated annotation of data we are particularly interested in, namely proteins related to the Mycoplasmataceae family. Following previous works on automatic annotation using symbolic machine learning techniques, the present work proposes a method of automatic annotation of keywords (a part of the SWISS-PROT annotation procedure), and the validation, by an expert, of the annotation rules generated.