Publications by authors named "Zunfang Tu"

Hydrophilic peptides (HPs) play a critical role in the pathogenesis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, the comprehensive and in-depth high-throughput analysis of specific changes in HPs associated with HCC remains unrealized, due to the complex nature of biological fluids and the challenges of mining complex patterns in large data sets. The clinical diagnosis of HCC still lacks a non-destructive and accurate classification method, given the limited specificity of widely used biomarkers.

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The presence of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), disinfectant resistance genes (DRGs), and pathogens in animal food processing environments (FAPE) poses a significant risk to human health. However, knowledge of the contamination and risk profiles of a typical commercial pig slaughterhouse with periodic disinfectant applications is limited. By creating the overall metagenomics-based behavior and risk profiles of ARGs, DRGs, and microbiomes in a nine-section pig slaughterhouse, an important FAPE in China.

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Plasmids play a critical role in the dissemination of antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs), however, a systematical understanding of ARGs originated from plasmids in swine production is currently lacking. Herein, quantitative polymerase chain reaction was applied to determine the prevalence of ten ARGs and the class1 integron gene intI1 of plasmid source in swine manure from 44 farms in Sichuan, Hubei and Hebei provinces, China. All assayed ARGs were observed in plasmid DNA samples, and the average absolute abundance of aac(6')-Ib-cr, bla, bla, optrA, ermB, floR, mcr-1, qnrS, tetM, sul1 and intI1 were 7.

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Swine manure treatment plants are important reservoirs of plasmid-harboring antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and physicochemical contaminants, but the changes in the abundances of plasmids and ARGs, and their interactions with the physicochemical properties of manure, are still unclear. Thus, in the present study, plasmidome and metagenome analyses were conducted for samples collected at different stages in the swine manure treatment process. The results indicated that anaerobic digestion and aerobic digestion were the most efficient stages for reducing the abundances of ARGs in swine manure.

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The global dissemination of plasmid-mediated colistin resistance gene and its variants have posed a great threat to public health. Therefore, the Chinese government banned the use of colistin as a feed additive in livestock in April 2017. To explore the dynamic changes of overall antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and phylogenetic relationship of bacteria from a single pig farm before and after the withdrawal of colistin, fecal swab samples were collected from a large-scale pig farm before ( = 32; 2 months pre-withdrawal of colistin) and after withdrawal of colistin ( = 30; 13 months post-withdrawal of colistin).

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Salmonella Enteritidis (S. Enteritidis), which could cause human disease and death by consuming the contaminated food, is an important zoonotic pathogen. With the rapid increase of antibiotic resistance all over the world, bacteriophage-based bio-control has gradually attracted public attention widely.

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