Impact of Drought on Northwest Iowa Beef Cow-Calf Operations

This project assessed the impact that the 2012 drought had on northwest Iowa cow-calf operations. A survey was mailed to 293 beef producers in seventeen northwest Iowa counties. Producers indicated that feed resources were scarce, and those who bought feed noted high prices made feed an undesirable purchase. Future plans included extensive pasture management and feed supplementation. The average pregnancy rate of the females, 93%, was not significantly affected by the drought, but heat stress on the female was perceived to affect pregnancy rate. Despite drought, 11% of the producers planned to retain open females. The majority, 75%, of the operations indicated that drought had little impact on their financial position, but 25% responded that their financial position would be poorer. To cope, some producers would sell part of the cows, sell the 2012 calves, and/or sell the 2012 replacement heifers. Other producers indicated that total or partial dispersal of the herd may be required. Rain, availability of feeds, and price of feedstuffs would dictate whether they kept or sold calves and cows

Start to Farm: New Farmer Learning Network’s Dairy Series

Start to Farm: New Farmer Learning Networks were for beginning and early-career farmers looking for an edge in managing and growing their farm business. The ISUEO Dairy Team provided an opportunity to address ways to improve business practices and production techniques, tour successful farm operations, and form a community to share new ideas and profitable farming methods. The goal of the networks was to provide an open atmosphere for discussion, sharing of ideas and learning about resources for producers who are in their first 10-12 years of dairy farming. It is important to help producers make sound dairy farm management decisions that are backed by current and relevant information. Based on pre-post evaluations of all in class sessions and a follow up evaluation 1 month post workshops and dairy tours, participants attending the Start to Farm Dairy Series are making better decisions in different areas of their operation or prospective operations. They can evaluate the effect making changes has on their operation, which will increase profitability and sustainability of new and early career dairy farmers to continue in the business

Start to Farm: New Farmer Learning Network’s Dairy Series

Start to Farm: New Farmer Learning Networks are for beginning and early-career farmers looking for an edge in managing and growing their farm business. The ISUEO Dairy Team is providing an opportunity to address ways to improve business practices and production techniques, tour successful farm operations, and form a community to share new ideas and profitable farming methods. The goal of the networks is to provide an open atmosphere for discussion, sharing of ideas and learning about resources for producers who are in their first 10-12 years of dairy farming. It is important to help producers make sound dairy farm management decisions that are backed by current and relevant information

Implementation of Vascularized Composite Allografts in the United States: Recommendations From the ASTS VCA Ad Hoc Committee and the Executive Committee

Like all other areas of transplantation, vascularized composite allografts (VCA) has the capacity to transform the lives of patients, for the better or for the worse. It is this duality that mandates VCA be performed in centers prepared for the intricacies accompanying other transplant procedures. Similarly, the complexities of VCA require that the procedures be driven by surgeons and physicians with experience in the multidisciplinary management of immunocompromised postsurgical patients. Furthermore, the grafts should be considered as organs rather than tissues from a regulatory and a biological standpoint. The ASTS supports the field of VCA and has demonstrated its support and leadership by actively formulating a strategy for its systematic development. The goal of this document is to provide a framework for the prospective, thoughtful realization of VCA in the United States from the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS) perspective.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/79113/1/j.1600-6143.2010.03374.x.pd

Loss of peroxiredoxin-2 exacerbates eccentric contraction-induced force loss in dystrophin-deficient muscle

Force loss in skeletal muscle exposed to eccentric contraction is often attributed to injury. We show that EDL muscles from dystrophin-deficient mdx mice recover 65% of lost force within 120 min of eccentric contraction and exhibit minimal force loss when the interval between contractions is increased from 3 to 30 min. A proteomic screen of mdx muscle identified an 80% reduction in the antioxidant peroxiredoxin-2, likely due to proteolytic degradation following hyperoxidation by NADPH Oxidase 2. Eccentric contraction-induced force loss in mdx muscle was exacerbated by peroxiredoxin-2 ablation, and improved by peroxiredoxin-2 overexpression or myoglobin knockout. Finally, overexpression of γcyto- or βcyto-actin protects mdx muscle from eccentric contraction-induced force loss by blocking NADPH Oxidase 2 through a mechanism dependent on cysteine 272 unique to cytoplasmic actins. Our data suggest that eccentric contraction-induced force loss may function as an adaptive circuit breaker that protects mdx muscle from injurious contractions

Synergistic Reversal of Intrahepatic HCV-Specific CD8 T Cell Exhaustion by Combined PD-1/CTLA-4 Blockade

Viral persistence is associated with hierarchical antiviral CD8 T cell exhaustion with increased programmed death-1 (PD-1) expression. In HCV persistence, HCV-specific CD8 T cells from the liver (the site of viral replication) display increased PD-1 expression and a profound functional impairment that is not reversed by PD-1 blockade alone. Here, we report that the inhibitory receptor cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen-4 (CTLA-4) is preferentially upregulated in PD-1+ T cells from the liver but not blood of chronically HCV-infected patients. PD-1/CTLA-4 co-expression in intrahepatic T cells was associated with a profound HCV-specific effector dysfunction that was synergistically reversed by combined PD-1/CTLA-4 blockade in vitro, but not by blocking PD-1 or CTLA-4 alone. A similar effect was observed in circulating HCV-specific CD8 T cells with increased PD-1/CTLA-4 co-expression during acute hepatitis C. The functional response to combined blockade was directly associated with CTLA-4 expression, lost with CD28-depletion and CD4-independent (including CD4+FoxP3+ Tregs). We conclude that PD-1 and CTLA-4 pathways both contribute to virus-specific T cell exhaustion at the site of viral replication by a redundant mechanism that requires combined PD-1/CTLA-4 blockade to reverse. These findings provide new insights into the mechanisms of virus-specific T cell dysfunction, and suggest that the synergistic effect by combined inhibitory receptor blockade might have a therapeutic application against chronic viral infection in vivo, provided that it does not induce autoimmunity

Evidence for a Reversible, Redox-Mediated Component to Eccentric Contraction-Induced Force Loss in Dystrophin-Deficient Skeletal Muscle

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation.April 2018. Major: Molecular, Cellular, Developmental Biology and Genetics. Advisor: James Ervasti. 1 computer file (PDF); vii, 135 pages.Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is one of the most common and severe forms of muscular dystrophy. To better understand eccentric contraction-induced force loss in dystrophic muscle, we used iTRAQ proteomics to identify proteins that were differentially expressed in mdx mice overexpressing nonmuscle γcyto-actin (mdx/Actg1-TG), which we have previously shown to significantly protect mdx muscle against force loss. We identified peroxiredoxin-2 (PrxII) as significantly decreased in mdx muscle compared to WT but restored to WT levels in mdx/Actg1-TG muscle. We show that increased sarcolemmal NADPH Oxidase 2 (NOX2)-dependent ROS production contributes to eccentric contraction-induced force loss while causing hyperoxidation and subsequent proteasomal degradation of PrxII in mdx muscle. Interestingly, ablation of PrxII exacerbated force loss in mdx muscle, while overexpression of PrxII led to a dose-dependent protection of force loss. We also establish the contribution of myoglobin to force loss in mdx muscle through the production of hydroxyl radicals. Finally, we demonstrate that oxidation-sensitive cysteine 272 unique to γcyto- and βcyto-actins is required to protect mdx muscle from force loss through inhibition of NOX2-dependent ROS production. Together, the data presented in this dissertation suggest that eccentric contractions may induce a rapidly reversible, redox-mediated inhibition of contractility, thus acting as a “circuit breaker” to protect mdx muscle from more disastrous structural damage during subsequent high force contractions