WISP genes are members of the connective tissue growth factor family that are up-regulated in Wnt-1-transformed cells and aberrantly expressed in human colon tumors

Wnt family members are critical to many developmental processes, and components of the Wnt signaling pathway have been linked to tumorigenesis in familial and sporadic colon carcinomas. Here we report the identification of two genes, WISP-1 and WISP-2, that are up-regulated in the mouse mammary epithelial cell line C57MG transformed by Wnt-1, but not by Wnt-4. Together with a third related gene, WISP-3, these proteins define a subfamily of the connective tissue growth factor family. Two distinct systems demonstrated WISP induction to be associated with the expression of Wnt-1. These included (i) C57MG cells infected with a Wnt-1 retroviral vector or expressing Wnt-1 under the control of a tetracyline repressible promoter, and (ii) Wnt-1 transgenic mice. The WISP-1 gene was localized to human chromosome 8q24.1-8q24.3. WISP-1 genomic DNA was amplified in colon cancer cell lines and in human colon tumors and its RNA overexpressed (2- to >30-fold) in 84% of the tumors examined compared with patient-matched normal mucosa. WISP-3 mapped to chromosome 6q22-6q23 and also was overexpressed (4- to >40-fold) in 63% of the colon tumors analyzed. In contrast, WISP-2 mapped to human chromosome 20q12-20q13 and its DNA was amplified, but RNA expression was reduced (2- to >30-fold) in 79% of the tumors. These results suggest that the WISP genes may be downstream of Wnt-1 signaling and that aberrant levels of WISP expression in colon cancer may play a role in colon tumorigenesis

Uncovering the heterogeneity and temporal complexity of neurodegenerative diseases with Subtype and Stage Inference

The heterogeneity of neurodegenerative diseases is a key confound to disease understanding and treatment development, as study cohorts typically include multiple phenotypes on distinct disease trajectories. Here we introduce a machine-learning technique\u2014Subtype and Stage Inference (SuStaIn)\u2014able to uncover data-driven disease phenotypes with distinct temporal progression patterns, from widely available cross-sectional patient studies. Results from imaging studies in two neurodegenerative diseases reveal subgroups and their distinct trajectories of regional neurodegeneration. In genetic frontotemporal dementia, SuStaIn identifies genotypes from imaging alone, validating its ability to identify subtypes; further the technique reveals within-genotype heterogeneity. In Alzheimer\u2019s disease, SuStaIn uncovers three subtypes, uniquely characterising their temporal complexity. SuStaIn provides fine-grained patient stratification, which substantially enhances the ability to predict conversion between diagnostic categories over standard models that ignore subtype (p = 7.18 7 10 124 ) or temporal stage (p = 3.96 7 10 125 ). SuStaIn offers new promise for enabling disease subtype discovery and precision medicine

“Geant Simulation of Muon Cooling Rings,” “Ionization Cooling Ring for Muons,” “Geant Simulation of Six-Dimensional Cooling of Muon Beams in Ring Coolers,” “Recent Progress in Neutrino Factory and Muon Collider Research Within the Muon Collaboration,” “Towards the Higgs Factory/Muon Collider,” “Status of R&D on Neutrino Factories and Muon Colliders,” “Feasibility Study-II of a Muon-Based Neutrino Source,” “A Muon Collider as a Higgs Factory,” “Higgs Factory Muon Collider,” “A Muon Collider as a Higgs Factory,” “A Feasibility Study of a Neutrino Source Based on a Muon Storage Ring,” “Status of Muon Collider Research and Development and Future Plans,”

FINAL TECHNICAL REPORT FOR DOE AWARD DE-FG02-03ER41267 NEUTRINO FACTORY AND MUON COLLIDER FELLOW 1. Introduction By providing an intense, well controlled, well characterized, narrow beam of muon neutrinos (’s) and electron antineutrinos ( ’s) from the decay of muons (’s) in a storage ring, a neutrino factory can advance neutrino physics beyond the current round of approved and proposed experiments using conventional neutrino beams produced from a beam of decaying pions and kaons [1, 2]. There is no other comparable single clean source of electron neutrinos (from the decay of +’s) or antineutrinos. A muon storage ring producing 1019 to 1021 muon decays per year should be feasible. These intense neutrino beams can be used to study neutrino oscillations and possible CP violation. An entry-level muon storage ring that could provide 1019 decays per year would allow a determination of the sign of and a first measurement of sin2213 for favorable values of this parameter. An improved muon storage ring system that could provide 1020 muon decays per year would allow measurement of sin2213 to 104. A high performance muon storage ring capable of providing more than 1020 muon decays per year would allow the exciting possibility of a measurement of CP violation in the leptonic sector. An intense cold muon beam at the front end of a neutrino factory could enable a rich variety of precision muon physics, such as a more precise measurement of the muon anomalous magnetic moment (g – 2) and searches for e and N e N conversion [3]. In addition, colliding beams of + and in a muon collider can provide an effective “Higgs factory” or multi-TeV center-of-mass energy collisions [4]. A muon collider will be the best way to study the Higgs bosons associated with supersymmetric theories and may be necessary to discover them. Two neutrino factory feasibility studies have been carried out in the U.S. [5, 6]. International design efforts are now under way. The International Neutrino Factory and Superbeam Scoping Study (ISS) [7] began at the NuFact05 Workshop in June 2005 with the goals of elaborating the physics case, defining the baseline options for such a facility and its neutrino detectors, and identifying the required R&D program to lay the foundations for a complete design study proposal, and an International Design Study of the Neutrino Factory is beginning. These studies entail iterative cost and technical difficulty evaluations, thereby providing guidelines for the advancing R&D program. One of the central subsystems of a neutrino factory or muon collider is the muon cooling system. The muon beam is cooled to increase the phase space density and allow the muons to pass through smaller apertures, thus reducing the cost of the following accelerator systems. This cooling is accomplished through ionization cooling, in which the beam is passed through liquid hydrogen absorbers and then accelerated in RF cavities to restore the longitudinal momentum. Ionization cooling was proposed more than twenty years ago [8] but has not yet been demonstrated in practice. The International Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) [9, 10] seeks to build and operate a muon-cooling device of a design proposed in Feasibility Study-II [6]. In addition to cooling the muons, MICE includes apparatus to measure the performance of the device. The experiment will be carried out by a collaboration of physicists from the U.S., Europe, and Japan at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the U.K. MICE will begin operation in late 2007. Successful performance of the MICE experiment will provide the understanding needed to design a complete neutrino factory, in which the muons are cooled, accelerated, circulated in a storage ring, and decay to produce the neutrino beam. The first neutrino factory might be built in the U.S., Europe, or Japan. A Muon Collider Task Force (MCTF) has recently been organized at Fermilab

Surto de listeriose sistêmica em chinchilas Outbreak of systemic listeriosis in chinchillas

A listeriose é uma doença infecciosa que afeta uma grande variedade de espécies animais, causando septicemia, encefalite e aborto. As chinchilas são os animais mais susceptíveis à infecção sistêmica por Listeria monocytogenes. Este relato descreve um surto de listeriose sistêmica em uma criação de chinchilas da região central do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul, onde cerca de 16% das chinchilas morreram. Na necropsia, havia múltiplos focos brancos, pequenos e de distribuição aleatória nas superfícies capsular e de corte do fígado e aumento de volume do linfonodo hepático. Histologicamente, observaram-se hepatite necrossupurativa e linfadenite supurativa multifocais, com numerosos bacilos intralesionais. L. monocytogenes foi o agente etiológico do surto de listeriose sistêmica, sendo o diagnóstico confirmado por meio das lesões de necropsia e histopatológicas, das características fenotípicas e genotípicas da bactéria e da técnica de imuno-histoquímica.<br>Listeriosis is an infectious disease, which affects a variety of animal species and cause septicemia, encephalitis and abortion. Chinchillas are the most susceptible animals to the systemic infection by Listeria monocytogenes. This report describes an outbreak of systemic listeriosis in a farm of chinchillas in the Central region of the Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil. Mortality rate was about 16%. On necropsy, there were multiple random small white foci on the liver capsule and parenchyma and enlargement of the hepatic lymph node. Histologically, there were multifocal necro-suppurative hepatitis and suppurative lymphadenitis with numerous intralesional bacilli. L. monocytogenes was the etiology of the systemic listeriosis outbreak. The diagnosis was based on gross and microscopic lesions, genotypical and phenotypical characteristics and by immunohistochemistry technique

Alimentação natural para cães e gatos Natural foods for dogs and cats

Um grande "recall" de alimentos PET ocorrido em 2007 nos Estados Unidos devido à contaminação fraudulenta por melamina, foi ponto chave para o interesse atual sobre novas alternativas alimentares para cães e gatos, a parte a rações comerciais convencionais. A procura por novidades no setor pet food, combinada com uma tendência permanente de humanização na indústria pet, acarreta aumento da procura por alimentos diferenciados para animais de estimação. Dentre os tipos de dietas alternativas encontram-se as dietas naturais, as orgânicas, entre outras. Entretanto, não existem orientações específicas para a fabricação e rotulagem de produtos que contenham carne crua, o que poderia ocasionar desequilíbrios e risco à saúde de proprietários que fornecem esse tipo de alimentação a seus animais de estimação. Por outro lado, os alimentos naturais podem ser constituídos por ingredientes destinados à alimentação humana, buscando uma aproximação da composição dos alimentos que os animais (cães e gatos) obtinham da natureza, com maior contribuição dos nutrientes, como proteína e lipídeos, a esses animais. Os efeitos que estes podem causar em animais de estimação são diversos, desde parâmetros relacionados ao surgimento de doenças, por afetarem o metabolismo de proteínas, carboidratos e/ou lipídeos, até fatores ligados à qualidade fecal e, mais além, na questão da segurança alimentar. Assim, os alimentos comerciais naturais são nichos de mercado potenciais e surgiram para atender a demanda de proprietários cada vez mais exigentes com relação à alimentação e nutrição de seus animais de companhia. Entretanto, é importante uma avaliação criteriosa e científica deste nicho de mercado, buscando estabelecer suas vantagens e desvantagens sob o ponto de vista nutricional e de segurança alimentar.<br>A major pet food recall occurred in 2007 in the United States due to fraudulent contamination with melamine was key to the current interest on new food alternatives for dogs and cats, the party to conventional commercial ration. The demand for exclusivity in the pet food industry, combined with a permanent trend of humanization in pet industry, increased the demand for differentiated food for pets. Among the types of alternative diets are called natural foods and organic, among others. However, no specific guidance on the approach to manufacturing and labeling of products containing raw meat, which could cause instability and risk the health of owners that by provide that type of food to their pets. Moreover, natural foods can be made of ingredients for food, seeking an approximation of the composition of the foods that animals (dogs and cats) obtained from nature, with higher contribution of nutrients such as proteins and lipids in these animals. The effects they may cause in pets are different from parameters related to the emergence of diseases that affect the metabolism of proteins, carbohydrates and / or lipid factors related to the quality fecal and beyond, the question of safety food. Thus, the commercial foods are natural and potential market niches have emerged to meet the demand of owners increasingly demanding in relation to food and nutrition for their pets. However, it is important to a thorough and scientific assessment of this niche market, seeking to establish its upside and downside from the point of view of nutrition and food security

Doenças de chinchilas (Chinchilla lanigera)

As doenças de chinchilas foram estudadas através da avaliação de laudos de necropsia entre janeiro de 1997 e dezembro de 2011. Em 202 chinchilas necropsiadas, 189 (93,5%) tiveram o diagnóstico determinado, e 13 (6,5%) tiveram diagnóstico inconclusivo, por ausência de lesões ou autólise acentuada. Dentre as 202 chinchilas computadas, 162 eram fêmeas (80%), 37 eram machos (18%), e em quatro chinchilas (2%) o sexo não foi anotado. As chinchilas tinham entre um dia a 12 anos de idade. As doenças foram agrupadas nas seguintes categorias: doenças inflamatórias, doenças causadas por intoxicações, doenças causadas por agentes físicos, doenças metabólicas, doenças parasitárias, doenças degenerativas, distúrbios circulatórios, neoplasmas, distúrbios do desenvolvimento e "outros distúrbios". As doenças inflamatórias foram as mais prevalentes (52 casos [25,7%]) e foram representadas por casos de gastrite (10 casos), listeriose (5 casos), septicemia (5 casos), broncopneumonia bacteriana (4 casos), enterite necrosante (4 casos), piometra (4 casos), diarreia com isolamento de Proteus sp. (3 casos), abscessos subcutâneos e em linfonodos (2 casos), endometrite (2 casos), otite (2 casos), pielonefrite (2 casos), abscesso do ligamento redondo do fígado (1 caso), pneumonia fibrinosa (1 caso), pneumonia intersticial (1 caso), hepatite e colecistite com isolamento de Salmonella sp. (1 caso), histiocitose pulmonar (1 caso), miosite linfo-histiocítica (1 caso) e um caso de dermatofitose (Trichopyton metagrophytes). O segundo grupo de doenças mais prevalentes foram as intoxicações (22,3%), representado por 45 casos de intoxicação por salinomicina. As doenças causadas por agentes físicos (21 casos [10,4%]) incluíam casos de traumas causados por outros animais (8 casos), automutilação após injeção intramuscular (8 casos), prolapso de reto (3 casos) e parto distócico (2 casos). A categoria de doenças metabólicas foi representada por 16 casos (7,9%) de lipidose hepática. As doenças parasitárias (8 casos [4%]) consistiram em infestação por pulga (4 casos), piolho (3 casos) e giardíase (1 caso). Doenças degenerativas (4 casos [2,5%]) incluíam insuficiência renal crônica (2 casos), necrose aleatória de hepatócitos (1 caso) e necrose muscular de origem desconhecida (1 caso). Os distúrbios circulatórios incluíram dois casos (0,99%) de insuficiência cardíaca congestiva. Neoplasmas foram representados por dois casos (0,99%) de adenocarcinoma gástrico. Um caso de atresia ani, associado a ausência do trato reprodutor, intestino grosso e rins policíticos representou a categoria de distúrbios do desenvolvimento (0,5%). Algumas doenças não se enquadraram nas categorias acima e foram enquadradas em "outros distúrbios" (38 casos [18,8%]). Nesta categoria, doenças dentárias foi o distúrbio mais comum, diagnosticado em 9% (18 de 202) de todas as chinchilas examinadas. Seguido por casos de hipertermia (14 casos), dois casos de anemia, dois casos de metaplasia de células adiposas do córtex da adrenal, e dois casos de mucometra