Prevalence of Campy/obacter spp. and Yersinia enterocolitica in Fattening Pig Herds in Lower Saxony, Germany

The results of a study on the occurrence of two bacteria that cause zoonoses, Campylobacter spp. and Yersmia enterocolilica were presented and the results of bacteriological and serological methods of detection were compared. The study was carried out on 30 fattening herds in Lower Saxony, Germany Bacteriological findings of Campylobacter spp. in the faeces indicated that 69.7% of the fattening pigs were positive, but 81 .2% tested positive serologically. All herds tested here were both bacteriologically and serologically positive for Campylobacter spp. Furthermore, only 8.4 % tested pos1t1ve for Yersinia enterocolitica in the faecal samples, but 66.8 % of the animals were serologically positive for that bacterium. At herd level 43.3 % of the herds tested bactenologically positive for Yersinia enterocolitica, whereas serological testing showed that 83.3 % of the units had one or more reacting animal

First Steps towards Underdominant Genetic Transformation of Insect Populations

The idea of introducing genetic modifications into wild populations of insects to stop them from spreading diseases is more than 40 years old. Synthetic disease refractory genes have been successfully generated for mosquito vectors of dengue fever and human malaria. Equally important is the development of population transformation systems to drive and maintain disease refractory genes at high frequency in populations. We demonstrate an underdominant population transformation system in Drosophila melanogaster that has the property of being both spatially self-limiting and reversible to the original genetic state. Both population transformation and its reversal can be largely achieved within as few as 5 generations. The described genetic construct {Ud} is composed of two genes; (1) a UAS-RpL14.dsRNA targeting RNAi to a haploinsufficient gene RpL14 and (2) an RNAi insensitive RpL14 rescue. In this proof-of-principle system the UAS-RpL14.dsRNA knock-down gene is placed under the control of an Actin5c-GAL4 driver located on a different chromosome to the {Ud} insert. This configuration would not be effective in wild populations without incorporating the Actin5c-GAL4 driver as part of the {Ud} construct (or replacing the UAS promoter with an appropriate direct promoter). It is however anticipated that the approach that underlies this underdominant system could potentially be applied to a number of species. Figure

Urban informality and confinement: toward a relational framework

In the 21st century, a growing number of people live ‘informal’ lives within fissures between legality and informality. Concomitantly, power relations are increasingly expressed through devices of confinement. While urban informality and confinement are on the rise often occurring simultaneously, scholars have so far studied them separately. By contrast, this article proposes a new framework for analysing urban informality and confinement relationally. It generates new insights into the role of informality in the (re)production of confinement and, vice versa, the role of confinement in shaping informal practices. While these insights are valuable for urban studies in general, the article charts new lines of research on urban marginality. It also discusses how the six articles included in this special issue signal the heuristic potential of this relational framework by empirically examining distinct urban configurations of ‘confined informalities’ and ‘informal confinements’ across the Global North and the Global South

Differential Spatial Expression and Subcellular Localization of CtBP Family Members in Rodent Brain

C-terminal binding proteins (CtBPs) are well-characterized nuclear transcriptional co-regulators. In addition, cytoplasmic functions were discovered for these ubiquitously expressed proteins. These include the involvement of the isoform CtBP1-S/BARS50 in cellular membrane-trafficking processes and a role of the isoform RIBEYE as molecular scaffolds in ribbons, the presynaptic specializations of sensory synapses. CtBPs were suggested to regulate neuronal differentiation and they were implied in the control of gene expression during epileptogenesis. However, the expression patterns of CtBP family members in specific brain areas and their subcellular localizations in neurons in situ are largely unknown. Here, we performed comprehensive assessment of the expression of CtBP1 and CtBP2 in mouse brain at the microscopic and the ultra-structural levels using specific antibodies. We quantified and compared expression levels of both CtBPs in biochemically isolated brain fractions containing cellular nuclei or synaptic compartment. Our study demonstrates differential regional and subcellular expression patterns for the two CtBP family members in brain and reveals a previously unknown synaptic localization for CtBP2 in particular brain regions. Finally, we propose a mechanism of differential synapto-nuclear targeting of its splice variants CtBP2-S and CtBP2-L in neurons

The role of Allee effect in modelling post resection recurrence of glioblastoma

Resection of the bulk of a tumour often cannot eliminate all cancer cells, due to their infiltration into the surrounding healthy tissue. This may lead to recurrence of the tumour at a later time. We use a reaction-diffusion equation based model of tumour growth to investigate how the invasion front is delayed by resection, and how this depends on the density and behaviour of the remaining cancer cells. We show that the delay time is highly sensitive to qualitative details of the proliferation dynamics of the cancer cell population. The typically assumed logistic type proliferation leads to unrealistic results, predicting immediate recurrence. We find that in glioblastoma cell cultures the cell proliferation rate is an increasing function of the density at small cell densities. Our analysis suggests that cooperative behaviour of cancer cells, analogous to the Allee effect in ecology, can play a critical role in determining the time until tumour recurrence

Prevalence of Campy/obacter spp. and Yersinia enterocolitica in Fattening Pig Herds in Lower Saxony, Germany

The results of a study on the occurrence of two bacteria that cause zoonoses, Campylobacter spp. and Yersmia enterocolilica were presented and the results of bacteriological and serological methods of detection were compared. The study was carried out on 30 fattening herds in Lower Saxony, Germany Bacteriological findings of Campylobacter spp. in the faeces indicated that 69.7% of the fattening pigs were positive, but 81 .2% tested positive serologically. All herds tested here were both bacteriologically and serologically positive for Campylobacter spp. Furthermore, only 8.4 % tested pos1t1ve for Yersinia enterocolitica in the faecal samples, but 66.8 % of the animals were serologically positive for that bacterium. At herd level 43.3 % of the herds tested bactenologically positive for Yersinia enterocolitica, whereas serological testing showed that 83.3 % of the units had one or more reacting animal.</p