19,196 research outputs found
Intestinal epithelial responses to Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis: Effects on intestinal permeability and ion transport
Salmonella infection of chickens that leads to potential human foodborne salmonellosis continues to be a major concern. Chickens serve as carriers but, in contrast to humans, rarely show any clinical signs including diarrhea. The present investigations aimed to elucidate whether the absence of diarrhea during acute Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis (Salmonella Enteritidis) infection may be linked to specific changes in the electrophysiological properties of the chicken gut. Immediately after slaughter, intestinal pieces of the mid-jejunum and cecum of either commercial broiler or specific pathogen-free (SPF) chickens were mounted in Ussing chambers in 2 separate experimental series. Living Salmonella Enteritidis (3 × 109) or Salmonella Enteritidis endotoxin (20 mg/L), or both, were added to the mucosal side for 1 h. In both experimental series, the Salmonella infection decreased the trans-epithelial ion conductance Gt (P < 0.05). In the jejunum of SPF chickens, there was also a marked decrease in net charge transfer across the epithelium, evidenced by decreased short-circuit current (Isc, P < 0.05). Interestingly, the mucosal application of Salmonella endotoxin to the epithelial preparations from jejunum and cecum of SPF chicken had an effect similar to living bacteria. However, the endotoxin had no additional effect on the intestinal function in the presence of bacteria. The decreasing effect of Salmonella and or its endotoxin on Gt could be partly reversed by serosal addition of histamine. To our knowledge, this is the first study to address the functional response of native intestinal epithelium of chicken to an in vitro Salmonella infection. For the first time, it can be reported that intestinal ion permeability of chicken decreases acutely by the presence of Salmonella. This type of response could counteract ion and fluid secretion and may thus, at least in part, explain why chickens do not develop overt diarrhea after Salmonella infection
Magnon Heat Conductivity and Mean Free Paths in Two-Leg Spin Ladders: A Model-Independent Determination
The magnon thermal conductivity of the spin ladders
in has been investigated at low doping levels
, 0.125, 0.25, 0.5 and 0.75. The Zn-impurities generate nonmagnetic
defects which define an upper limit for and therefore allow
a clear-cut relation between and to
be established independently of any model. Over a large temperature range we
observe a progressive suppression of with increasing
Zn-content and find in particular that with respect to pure is strongly suppressed even in
the case of tiny impurity densities where ~{\AA}.
This shows unambiguously that large ~{\AA} which
have been reported for and on basis of a kinetic model are in the correct order
of magnitude
Campylobacter jejuni colonization promotes the translocation of Escherichia coli to extra-intestinal organs and disturbs the short-chain fatty acids profiles in the chicken gut
For a long time Campylobacter was only considered as a commensal microorganism in avian hosts restricted to the ceca, without any pathogenic features. The precise reasons for the symptomless chicken carriers are still unknown, but investigations of the gastrointestinal ecology of broiler chickens may improve our understanding of the microbial interactions with the host. Therefore, the current studies were conducted to investigate the effects of Campylobacter jejuni colonization on Escherichia coli translocation and on the metabolic end products (short-chain fatty acids, SCFAs). Following oral infection of 14 day old broiler chickens with 1 × 108 CFU of Campylobacter jejuni NCTC 12744 in two independent animal trials, it was found that C. jejuni heavily colonized the intestine and disseminate to extra-intestinal organs. Moreover, in both animal trials, the findings revealed that C. jejuni promoted the translocation of E. coli with a higher number encountered in the spleen and liver at 14 days post infection (dpi). In addition, Campylobacter affected the microbial fermentation in the gastrointestinal tract of broilers by reducing the amount of propionate, isovalerate, and isobutyrate in the cecal digesta of the infected birds at 2 dpi and, at 7 and 14 dpi, butyrate, isobutyrate, and isovalerate were also decreased. However, in the jejunum, the C. jejuni infection lowered only butyrate concentrations at 14 dpi. These data indicated that C. jejuni may utilize SCFAs as carbon sources to promote its colonization in the chicken gut, suggesting that Campylobacter cannot only alter gut colonization dynamics but might also influence physiological processes due to altered microbial metabolite profiles.
Finally, the results demonstrated that C. jejuni can cross the intestinal epithelial barrier and facilitates the translocation of Campylobacter itself as well as of other enteric microorganisms such as E. coli to extra-intestinal organs of infected birds. Altogether, our findings suggest that the Campylobacter carrier state in chicken is characterised by multiple changes in the intestinal barrier function, which supports multiplication and survival within the host
Regge Behaviour from an Environmentally Friendly Renormalization Group
The asymptotic behaviour of cubic field theories is investigated in the Regge
limit using the techniques of environmentally friendly renormalization,
environmentally friendly in the present context meaning asymmetric in its
momentum dependence. In particular we consider the crossover between large and
small energies at fixed momentum transfer for a model scalar theory of the type
phi^2 psi. The asymptotic forms of the crossover scaling functions are
exhibited for all two particle scattering processes in this channel to one loop
in a renormalization group improved perturbation theory.Comment: 9 pages text, one figure, LaTeX, uses psfig.sty. Revised version
submitted to Phys. Lett. B., besides minor changes a figure to illustrate the
conventions and a discussion of the full crossover function have been adde
Research study of droplet sizing technology leading to the development of an advanced droplet sizing system
An instrument to measure the size and velocity of droplets was developed. The instrument uses one of two techniques, as appropriate. In the first technique two small laser beams of one color identify the center of a larger laser beam of a different color. This defines a region of almost uniform intensity where the light scattered by the individual droplets can be related to their size. The first technique uses the visibility of a Doppler burst and validates it against the peak intensity of the signal's pedestal. Results are presented for monodisperse, bimodal, trimodal, and polydisperse sprays produced by the Berglund-Liu droplet generator and a pressure nozzle. Size distributions of a given spray obtained using three different size ranges show excellent self-consistency in the overlapping region. Measurements of sprays of known characteristics exhibit errors in the order of 10%. The principles of operation and design criteria of the instrument are discussed in great detail
Magnetic heat conductivity in : linear temperature dependence
We present experimental results for the thermal conductivity of the
pseudo 2-leg ladder material . The strong buckling of the ladder
rungs renders this material a good approximation to a Heisenberg-chain.
Despite a strong suppression of the thermal conductivity of this material in
all crystal directions due to inherent disorder, we find a dominant magnetic
contribution along the chain direction.
is \textit{linear} in temperature, resembling the
low-temperature limit of the thermal Drude weight of the
Heisenberg chain. The comparison of and
yields a magnetic mean free path of \AA, in good agreement with magnetic measurements.Comment: appears in PR
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