Gene expression profiling in hepatic tissue of newly weaned pigs fed pharmacological zinc and phytase supplemented diets

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Zinc (Zn) is an essential trace element. However, Zn bioavailability from commonly consumed plants may be reduced due to phytic acid. Zn supplementation has been used to treat diarrheal disease in children, and in the U.S. swine industry at pharmacological levels to promote growth and fecal consistency, but underlying mechanisms explaining these beneficial effects remain unknown. Moreover, adding supplemental phytase improves Zn bioavailability. Thus, we hypothesized that benefits of pharmacological Zn supplementation result from changes in gene expression that could be further affected by supplemental phytase. The goal of this study was to investigate the effects of feeding newly weaned pigs dietary Zn (150, 1,000, or 2,000 mg Zn/kg) as Zn oxide with or without phytase [500 phytase units (FTU)/kg] for 14 d on hepatic gene expression. Liver RNA from pigs fed 150, 1,000, or 2,000 mg Zn/kg, or 1,000 mg Zn/kg with phytase (n = 4 per treatment) was reverse transcribed and examined using the differential display reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction technique. Liver RNA from pigs fed 150 or 2,000 mg Zn/kg (n = 4 per treatment) was also evaluated using a 70-mer oligonucleotide microarray.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Expressed sequence tags for 61 putatively differentially expressed transcripts were cloned and sequenced. In addition, interrogation of a 13,297 element oligonucleotide microarray revealed 650 annotated transcripts (FDR ≤ 0.05) affected by pharmacological Zn supplementation. Seven transcripts exhibiting differential expression in pigs fed pharmacological Zn with sequence similarities to genes encoding <it>GLO1</it>, <it>PRDX4</it>, <it>ACY1</it>, <it>ORM1</it>, <it>CPB2</it>, <it>GSTM4</it>, and <it>HSP70.2 </it>were selected for confirmation. Relative hepatic <it>GLO1 </it>(<it>P </it>< 0.0007), <it>PRDX4 </it>(<it>P </it>< 0.009) and <it>ACY1 </it>(<it>P </it>< 0.01) mRNA abundances were confirmed to be greater in pigs fed 1,000 (n = 8) and 2,000 (n = 8) mg Zn/kg than in pigs fed 150 (n = 7) mg Zn/kg. Relative hepatic <it>HSP70.2 </it>(P < 0.002) mRNA abundance was confirmed to be lower in pigs fed 2,000 mg Zn/kg than in pigs fed 150 or 1,000 mg Zn/kg.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Results suggest that feeding pharmacological Zn (1,000 or 2,000 mg Zn/kg) affects genes involved in reducing oxidative stress and in amino acid metabolism, which are essential for cell detoxification and proper cell function.</p

Experimental and modeled thermoregulatory costs of repeated sublethal oil exposure in the Double-crested Cormorant, \u3ci\u3ePhalacrocorax auritus\u3c/i\u3e

To fully understand the impact of oil exposure, it is important to understand sublethal effects like how increased thermoregulatory costs may affect survival and reproduction. However, it is difficult and time-consuming to measure these effects in wild animals. We present a novel use of a bioenergetics model, Niche Mapper™, to estimate thermoregulatory impacts of oiling, using data from captive Double-crested Cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) experimentally exposed to oil. Oiled cormorants had significant increases in surface body temperatures following exposure. Niche Mapper accurately predicted surface temperatures and metabolic rates for unoiled and oiled cormorants and predicted 13–18% increased daily energetic demands due to increased thermoregulatory costs of oiling, consistent with increased food consumption observed in experimentally oiled cormorants. We show that Niche Mapper can provide valuable insight into sublethal oiling effects by quantifying the extent to which thermoregulatory costs divert energy resources away from important life processes like maintenance, reproduction and migration

Sex and sport: chlamydia screening in rural sporting clubs

BACKGROUND: Chlamydia trachomatis is the most common notifiable disease in Australia, mainly affecting those aged 15 to 29 years. Testing rates are low in Australia and considerably lower in rural areas, with access and confidentiality of sexual health services being problematic in rural and regional areas. This study aimed to determine the feasibility of establishing a pilot chlamydia testing outreach program among 16-25 year old males and females in rural Victoria (Australia) undertaken at local sporting clubs and to determine the prevalence of chlamydia and acceptability of the program in this population. METHODS: We aimed to recruit young people from the Loddon Mallee region of Victoria, Australia between May and September 2007. After a night of sporting practice, participants provided a first pass urine sample, completed a brief questionnaire regarding risk taking behaviour and were then provided with condoms and health promotion materials about sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Those positive for chlamydia were managed by telephone consultation with a practitioner from Melbourne Sexual Health Centre. RESULTS: A total of 709 young people participated (77% male, 23% female), 77% being sexually active. All provided a urine sample and completed the questionnaire. Participation rate on recruitment nights was over 95%. Overall chlamydia prevalence in those sexually active was 5.1% (95%CI: 3.4-7.3), 7.4% in females (95%CI: 3.5-13.6) and 4.5% in males (95%CI: 2.7-6.9). CONCLUSION: Sporting clubs represent a feasible, acceptable and innovative community based setting to screen, treat and educate young people in a rural and regional setting, especially for males

Changes in white cell estimates and plasma chemistry measurements following oral or external dosing of double-crested cormorants, \u3ci\u3ePhalacocorax auritus\u3c/i\u3e, with artificially weathered MC252 oil

Scoping studies were designed whereby double-crested cormorants (Phalacocorax auritus) were dosed with artificially weathered Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil either daily through oil injected feeder fish, or by application of oil directly to feathers every three days. Preening results in oil ingestion, and may be an effective means of orally dosing birds with toxicant to improve our understanding of the full range of physiological effects of oral oil ingestion on birds. Blood samples collected every 5–6 days were analyzed for a number of clinical endpoints including white blood cell (WBC) estimates and differential cell counts. Plasma biochemical evaluations were performed for changes associated with oil toxicity. Oral dosing and application of oil to feathers resulted in clinical signs and statistically significant changes in a number of biochemical endpoints consistent with petroleum exposure. In orally dosed birds there were statistically significant decreases in aspartate amino transferase (AST) and gamma glutamyl transferase (GGT) activities, calcium, chloride, cholesterol, glucose, and total protein concentrations, and increases in plasma urea, uric acid, and phosphorus concentrations. Plasma electrophoresis endpoints (pre-albumin, albumin, alpha-2 globulin, beta globulin, and gamma globulin concentrations and albumin: globulin ratios) were decreased in orally dosed birds. Birds with external oil had increases in urea, creatinine, uric acid, creatine kinase (CK), glutamate dehydrogenase (GLDH), phosphorus, calcium, chloride, potassium, albumin, alpha-1 globulin and alpha-2 globulin. Decreases were observed in AST, beta globulin and glucose. WBC also differed between treatments; however, this was in part driven by monocytosis present in the externally oiled birds prior to oil treatment

Changes in white cell estimates and plasma chemistry measurements following oral or external dosing of double-crested cormorants, \u3ci\u3ePhalacocorax auritus\u3c/i\u3e, with artificially weathered MC252 oil

Scoping studies were designed whereby double-crested cormorants (Phalacocorax auritus) were dosed with artificially weathered Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil either daily through oil injected feeder fish, or by application of oil directly to feathers every three days. Preening results in oil ingestion, and may be an effective means of orally dosing birds with toxicant to improve our understanding of the full range of physiological effects of oral oil ingestion on birds. Blood samples collected every 5–6 days were analyzed for a number of clinical endpoints including white blood cell (WBC) estimates and differential cell counts. Plasma biochemical evaluations were performed for changes associated with oil toxicity. Oral dosing and application of oil to feathers resulted in clinical signs and statistically significant changes in a number of biochemical endpoints consistent with petroleum exposure. In orally dosed birds there were statistically significant decreases in aspartate amino transferase (AST) and gamma glutamyl transferase (GGT) activities, calcium, chloride, cholesterol, glucose, and total protein concentrations, and increases in plasma urea, uric acid, and phosphorus concentrations. Plasma electrophoresis endpoints (pre-albumin, albumin, alpha-2 globulin, beta globulin, and gamma globulin concentrations and albumin: globulin ratios) were decreased in orally dosed birds. Birds with external oil had increases in urea, creatinine, uric acid, creatine kinase (CK), glutamate dehydrogenase (GLDH), phosphorus, calcium, chloride, potassium, albumin, alpha-1 globulin and alpha-2 globulin. Decreases were observed in AST, beta globulin and glucose. WBC also differed between treatments; however, this was in part driven by monocytosis present in the externally oiled birds prior to oil treatment

A Framework for Examining Social Stress and Susceptibility to Air Pollution in Respiratory Health

Objective: There is growing interest in disentangling the health effects of spatially clustered social and physical environmental exposures and in exploring potential synergies among them, with particular attention directed to the combined effects of psychosocial stress and air pollution. Both exposures may be elevated in lower-income urban communities, and it has been hypothesized that stress, which can influence immune function and susceptibility, may potentiate the effects of air pollution in respiratory disease onset and exacerbation. In this paper, we attempt to synthesize the relevant research from social and environmental epidemiology, toxicology, immunology, and exposure assessment to provide a useful framework for environmental health researchers aiming to investigate the health effects of environmental pollution in combination with social or psychological factors. Data synthesis: We review the existing epidemiologic and toxicologic evidence on synergistic effects of stress and pollution, and then describe the physiologic effects of stress and key issues related to measuring and evaluating stress as it relates to physical environmental exposures and susceptibility. Finally, we identify some of the major methodologic challenges ahead as we work toward disentangling the health effects of clustered social and physical exposures and accurately describing the interplay among these exposures. Conclusions: There is still tremendous work to be done toward understanding the combined and potentially synergistic health effects of stress and pollution. As this research proceeds, we recommend careful attention to the relative temporalities of stress and pollution exposures, to nonlinearities in their independent and combined effects, to physiologic pathways not elucidated by epidemiologic methods, and to the relative spatial distributions of social and physical exposures at multiple geographic scales

Comparisons of electron fluxes measured in the crustal fields at Mars by the MGS magnetometer/electron reflectometer instrument with a B field–dependent transport code

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/95296/1/jgre1782.pd

Socioeconomic Status, Structural and Functional Measures of Social Support, and Mortality: The British Whitehall II Cohort Study, 1985–2009

The authors examined the associations of social support with socioeconomic status (SES) and with mortality, as well as how SES differences in social support might account for SES differences in mortality. Analyses were based on 9,333 participants from the British Whitehall II Study cohort, a longitudinal cohort established in 1985 among London-based civil servants who were 35–55 years of age at baseline. SES was assessed using participant's employment grades at baseline. Social support was assessed 3 times in the 24.4-year period during which participants were monitored for death. In men, marital status, and to a lesser extent network score (but not low perceived support or high negative aspects of close relationships), predicted both all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. Measures of social support were not associated with cancer mortality. Men in the lowest SES category had an increased risk of death compared with those in the highest category (for all-cause mortality, hazard ratio = 1.59, 95% confidence interval: 1.21, 2.08; for cardiovascular mortality, hazard ratio = 2.48, 95% confidence interval: 1.55, 3.92). Network score and marital status combined explained 27% (95% confidence interval: 14, 43) and 29% (95% confidence interval: 17, 52) of the associations between SES and all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, respectively. In women, there was no consistent association between social support indicators and mortality. The present study suggests that in men, social isolation is not only an important risk factor for mortality but is also likely to contribute to differences in mortality by SES

Genetic risk and a primary role for cell-mediated immune mechanisms in multiple sclerosis.

Multiple sclerosis is a common disease of the central nervous system in which the interplay between inflammatory and neurodegenerative processes typically results in intermittent neurological disturbance followed by progressive accumulation of disability. Epidemiological studies have shown that genetic factors are primarily responsible for the substantially increased frequency of the disease seen in the relatives of affected individuals, and systematic attempts to identify linkage in multiplex families have confirmed that variation within the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) exerts the greatest individual effect on risk. Modestly powered genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have enabled more than 20 additional risk loci to be identified and have shown that multiple variants exerting modest individual effects have a key role in disease susceptibility. Most of the genetic architecture underlying susceptibility to the disease remains to be defined and is anticipated to require the analysis of sample sizes that are beyond the numbers currently available to individual research groups. In a collaborative GWAS involving 9,772 cases of European descent collected by 23 research groups working in 15 different countries, we have replicated almost all of the previously suggested associations and identified at least a further 29 novel susceptibility loci. Within the MHC we have refined the identity of the HLA-DRB1 risk alleles and confirmed that variation in the HLA-A gene underlies the independent protective effect attributable to the class I region. Immunologically relevant genes are significantly overrepresented among those mapping close to the identified loci and particularly implicate T-helper-cell differentiation in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis

HIV-related discrimination reported by people living with HIV in London, UK

The objective was to examine the extent to which people living with HIV in London reported being discriminated against because of their infection. In 2004–2005, people living with HIV attending NHS outpatient HIV clinics in north east London were asked: “Have you ever been treated unfairly or differently because of your HIV status—in other words discriminated against?”. Of the 1,687 people who returned a questionnaire (73% response rate), data from 1,385 respondents were included in this analysis; 448 heterosexual women and 210 heterosexual men of black African origin, 727 gay/bisexual men (621 white, 106 ethnic minority). Overall, nearly one-third of respondents (29.9%, 414/1,385) said they had been discriminated against because of their HIV infection. Of those who reported experiencing HIV-related discrimination, almost a half (49.6%, 200/403) said this had involved a health care worker including their dentist (n = 102, 25.3%) or primary care physician (n = 70, 17.4%)