Productive performance and immune response of laying hens as affected by dietary propolis supplementation.

Abstract: An experiment was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of supplemental Propolis on productive performance and immune response of laying hens. One hundred and twenty Hy-Line White strain were divided into four groups of 30 each. They were fed 0, 50, 100 and 150 mg of supplemental Propolis for 8 weeks (46-54wk). Chickens in all groups were reared under the same environmental, managerial and hygienic conditions. Feed and water were supplied ad libitum. The average high and low ambient temperatures recorded during the experimental period were 22.6 and 15.8 C, respectively. The performance o data revealed that the laying hens fed diet containing 100 and 150 mg Propolis were significantly consumed more feed than control-group. Similar trend, but not statistically significant, was observed for hens fed diet added 50 mg Propolis. With respect to egg mass, it could be noticed that the laying hens fed diet containing 100 and 150 mg Propolis significantly produced heaviest egg mass compared to control-group. The hens fed diet added 50 mg Propolis were intermediate. The increase feed intake and egg mass in propolis groups, resulting in significantly improve feed conversion ratio compared to control-group. Eggshell quality was significantly affected by Propolis supplementation, whereas the percentage and thickness of eggshell were significantly increased in the eggs produced from hens fed diet containing medium or high level of Propolis. In accordance to hematological parameters, the medium or high level of dietary Propolis significantly increased hematocrit level, plasma total protein and globulin. Conversely, the plasma cholesterol and liver enzymes were significantly reduced when laying hens fed diet containing 100 or 150 mg Propolis. In vivo cell-mediated immune response as measured by PHA-P stimulation (wattle) revealed that the laying hens fed diet added 50, 100 and 150 mg Propolis/kg had significantly hyper responder compared to control-fed group. Concerning white blood cells differentiation, the present results speculated that the 100 and 150 mg Propolis supplementation significantly decreased heterophils count and increased lymphocytes count when compared with the control-group. In conclusion, it can be concluded from the above study that supplementation of Propolis at 100 or 150 mg is beneficial for improving the performance and immunity and for exploiting the full genetic potential of the commercial laying hens

Diffusion of Myosin V on Microtubules: A Fine-Tuned Interaction for Which E-Hooks Are Dispensable

Organelle transport in eukaryotes employs both microtubule and actin tracks to deliver cargo effectively to their destinations, but the question of how the two systems cooperate is still largely unanswered. Recently, in vitro studies revealed that the actin-based processive motor myosin V also binds to, and diffuses along microtubules. This biophysical trick enables cells to exploit both tracks for the same transport process without switching motors. The detailed mechanisms underlying this behavior remain to be solved. By means of single molecule Total Internal Reflection Microscopy (TIRFM), we show here that electrostatic tethering between the positively charged loop 2 and the negatively charged C-terminal E-hooks of microtubules is dispensable. Furthermore, our data indicate that in addition to charge-charge interactions, other interaction forces such as non-ionic attraction might account for myosin V diffusion. These findings provide evidence for a novel way of myosin tethering to microtubules that does not interfere with other E-hook-dependent processes

Cardiac 4D phase-contrast CMR at 9.4 T using self-gated ultra-short echo time (UTE) imaging

Background: Time resolved 4D phase contrast (PC) cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) in mice is challenging due to long scan times, small animal ECG-gating and the rapid blood flow and cardiac motion of small rodents. To overcome several of these technical challenges we implemented a retrospectively self-gated 4D PC radial ultra-short echo-time (UTE) acquisition scheme and assessed its performance in healthy mice by comparing the results with those obtained with an ECG-triggered 4D PC fast low angle shot (FLASH) sequence. Methods: Cardiac 4D PC CMR images were acquired at 9.4 T in healthy mice using the proposed self-gated radial center-out UTE acquisition scheme (TE/TR of 0.5 ms/3.1 ms) and a standard Cartesian 4D PC imaging sequence (TE/TR of 2.1 ms/5.0 ms) with a four-point Hadamard flow encoding scheme. To validate the proposed UTE flow imaging technique, experiments on a flow phantom with variable pump rates were performed. Results: The anatomical images and flow velocity maps of the proposed 4D PC UTE technique showed reduced artifacts and an improved SNR (left ventricular cavity (LV): 8.9 +/- 2.5, myocardium (MC): 15.7 +/- 1.9) compared to those obtained using a typical Cartesian FLASH sequence (LV: 5.6 +/- 1.2, MC: 10.1 +/- 1.4) that was used as a reference. With both sequences comparable flow velocities were obtained in the flow phantom as well as in the ascending aorta (UTE: 132.8 +/- 18.3 cm/s, FLASH: 134.7 +/- 13.4 cm/s) and pulmonary artery (UTE: 78.5 +/- 15.4 cm/s, FLASH: 86.6 +/- 6. 2 cm/s) of the animals. Self-gated navigator signals derived from information of the oversampled k-space center were successfully extracted for all animals with a higher gating efficiency of time spent on acquiring gated data versus total measurement time (UTE: 61.8 +/- 11.5%, FLASH: 48.5 +/- 4.9%). Conclusions: The proposed self-gated 4D PC UTE sequence enables robust and accurate flow velocity mapping of the mouse heart in vivo at high magnetic fields. At the same time SNR, gating efficiency, flow artifacts and image quality all improved compared to the images obtained using the well-established, ECG-triggered, 4D PC FLASH sequenc

Evaluation of compressed sensing MRI for accelerated bowel motility imaging

BACKGROUND: To investigate the feasibility of compressed sensing and parallel imaging (CS-PI)-accelerated bowel motility magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and to compare its image quality and diagnostic quality to conventional sensitivity encoding (SENSE) accelerated scans. METHODS: Bowel MRI was performed in six volunteers using a three-dimensional balanced fast field-echo sequence. Static scans were performed after the administration of a spasmolytic agent to prevent bowel motion artefacts. Fully sampled reference scans and multiple prospectively 3× to 7× undersampled CS-PI and SENSE scans were acquired. Additionally, fully sampled CS-PI and SENSE scans were retrospectively undersampled and reconstructed. Dynamic scans were performed using 5× to 7× accelerated scans in the presence of bowel motion. Retrospectively, undersampled scans were compared to fully sampled scans using structural similarity indices. All reconstructions were visually assessed for image quality and diagnostic quality by two radiologists. RESULTS: For static imaging, the performance of CS-PI was lower than that of fully sampled and SENSE scans: the diagnostic quality was assessed as adequate or good for 100% of fully sampled scans, 95% of SENSE, but only for 55% of CS-PI scans. For dynamic imaging, CS-PI image quality was scored similar to SENSE at high acceleration. Diagnostic quality of all scans was scored as adequate or good; 55% of CS-PI and 83% of SENSE scans were scored as good. CONCLUSION: Compared to SENSE, current implementation of CS-PI performed less or equally good in terms of image quality and diagnostic quality. CS-PI did not show advantages over SENSE for three-dimensional bowel motility imaging

Relationships between radiological and biochemical-evidence of rickets in asian schoolchildren

One hundred Asian schoolchildren provided evidence of the relationships between radiological and biochemical evidence of rickets in a vitamin D-deficient population. In a retrospective study of the X-rays of 56 children the variables serum alkaline phosphatase, inorganic phosphorus and age provided a discriminant function which correctly classified 10 of 11 children with radiological evidence of rickets and 44 of 45 children with negative or marginally abnormal X-rays. When the discriminant function was applied to a prospective study of 44 children, three children with radiological evidence of rickets were correctly classified together with 38 of the remaining 41 children with negative or marginally abnormal X-rays. Serum alkaline phosphatase was the most important variable in the discriminant analysis, followed by serum inorganic phosphorus and age. Low levels of serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D (25-OHD) are of little value in predicting the severity of radiological evidence of rachitic bone disease in a vitamin D-deficient population

Assessment of Myocardial Fibrosis in Mice Using a T2*-Weighted 3D Radial Magnetic Resonance Imaging Sequence

Background Myocardial fibrosis is a common hallmark of many diseases of the heart. Late gadolinium enhanced MRI is a powerful tool to image replacement fibrosis after myocardial infarction (MI). Interstitial fibrosis can be assessed indirectly from an extracellular volume fraction measurement using contrast-enhanced T1 mapping. Detection of short T2* species resulting from fibrotic tissue may provide an attractive non-contrast-enhanced alternative to directly visualize the presence of both replacement and interstitial fibrosis. Objective To goal of this paper was to explore the use of a T2*-weighted radial sequence for the visualization of fibrosis in mouse heart. Methods C57BL/6 mice were studied with MI (n = 20, replacement fibrosis), transverse aortic constriction (TAC) (n = 18, diffuse fibrosis), and as control (n = 10). 3D center-out radial T2*-weighted images with varying TE were acquired in vivo and ex vivo (TE = 21 mu s-4 ms). Ex vivo T2*-weighted signal decay with TE was analyzed using a 3-component model. Subtraction of short-and long-TE images was used to highlight fibrotic tissue with short T2*. The presence of fibrosis was validated using histology and correlated to MRI findings. Results Detailed ex vivo T2*-weighted signal analysis revealed a fast (T2*(fast)), slow (T2*(slow)) and lipid (T2*(lipid)) pool. T2*(fast) remained essentially constant. Infarct T2*(slow) decreased significantly, while a moderate decrease was observed in remote tissue in post-MI hearts and in TAC hearts. T2*(slow) correlated with the presence of diffuse fibrosis in TAC hearts (r = 0.82, P = 0.01). Ex vivo and in vivo subtraction images depicted a positive contrast in the infarct co-localizing with the scar. Infarct volumes from histology and subtraction images linearly correlated (r = 0.94,

Self-gated, dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging with compressed-sensing reconstruction for evaluating endothelial permeability in the aortic root of atherosclerotic mice

High-risk atherosclerotic plaques are characterized by active inflammation and abundant leaky microvessels. We present a self-gated, dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) acquisition with compressed sensing reconstruction and apply it to assess longitudinal changes in endothelial permeability in the aortic root of Apoe−/− atherosclerotic mice during natural disease progression. Twenty-four, 8-week-old, female Apoe−/− mice were divided into four groups (n = 6 each) and imaged with self-gated DCE-MRI at 4, 8, 12, and 16 weeks after high-fat diet initiation, and then euthanized for CD68 immunohistochemistry for macrophages. Eight additional mice were kept on a high-fat diet and imaged longitudinally at the same time points. Aortic-root pseudo-concentration curves were analyzed using a validated piecewise linear model. Contrast agent wash-in and washout slopes (b1 and b2) were measured as surrogates of aortic root endothelial permeability and compared with macrophage density by immunohistochemistry. b2, indicating contrast agent washout, was significantly higher in mice kept on an high-fat diet for longer periods of time (p = 0.03). Group comparison revealed significant differences between mice on a high-fat diet for 4 versus 16 weeks (p = 0.03). Macrophage density also significantly increased with diet duration (p = 0.009). Spearman correlation between b2 from DCE-MRI and macrophage density indicated a weak relationship between the two parameters (r = 0.28, p = 0.20). Validated piecewise linear modeling of the DCE-MRI data showed that the aortic root contrast agent washout rate is significantly different during disease progression. Further development of this technique from a single-slice to a 3D acquisition may enable better investigation of the relationship between in vivo imaging of endothelial permeability and atherosclerotic plaques' genetic, molecular, and cellular makeup in this important model of disease