Effect of dried distillers grains (DDGS) on diet digestibility, growth performance, and carcass characteristics in Creole wool lambs fed finishing diets

Dried corn distillers grains with solubles (DDGS) can partially replace grains and forages in diets for ruminants. The objective of this research was to evaluate the effect of replacing grains and soybean meal with DDGS (0%, 15%, 30% and 45%) in the diet of lambs. Thirty-two native lambs were used (initial bodyweight = 28.6 ± 2.19 kg) in a completely randomized design. Initial body weight was a co-variable, and the means were compared with the Tukey test. The dry matter intake was significantly higher in DDGS containing diet than in the control treatment. The daily weight gain was higher in the diets with 15% of DDGS compared with the control. Dry matter digestibility was lower by 7% with 45% of DDGS. The hot and cold carcass weights were significantly higher by 8% in DDGS treatments compared to the control. The inclusion of increasing levels of DDGS in the diet of fattening lambs increased their dry matter intake, improved carcass weight, and did not adversely affect carcass characteristics.Keywords: Carcass, by-products, animal production, ruminant nutritio

Deep-sequencing reveals broad subtype-specific HCV resistance mutations associated with treatment failure

A percentage of hepatitis C virus (HCV)-infected patients fail direct acting antiviral (DAA)-based treatment regimens, often because of drug resistance-associated substitutions (RAS). The aim of this study was to characterize the resistance profile of a large cohort of patients failing DAA-based treatments, and investigate the relationship between HCV subtype and failure, as an aid to optimizing management of these patients. A new, standardized HCV-RAS testing protocol based on deep sequencing was designed and applied to 220 previously subtyped samples from patients failing DAA treatment, collected in 39 Spanish hospitals. The majority had received DAA-based interferon (IFN) a-free regimens; 79% had failed sofosbuvir-containing therapy. Genomic regions encoding the nonstructural protein (NS) 3, NS5A, and NS5B (DAA target regions) were analyzed using subtype-specific primers. Viral subtype distribution was as follows: genotype (G) 1, 62.7%; G3a, 21.4%; G4d, 12.3%; G2, 1.8%; and mixed infections 1.8%. Overall, 88.6% of patients carried at least 1 RAS, and 19% carried RAS at frequencies below 20% in the mutant spectrum. There were no differences in RAS selection between treatments with and without ribavirin. Regardless of the treatment received, each HCV subtype showed specific types of RAS. Of note, no RAS were detected in the target proteins of 18.6% of patients failing treatment, and 30.4% of patients had RAS in proteins that were not targets of the inhibitors they received. HCV patients failing DAA therapy showed a high diversity of RAS. Ribavirin use did not influence the type or number of RAS at failure. The subtype-specific pattern of RAS emergence underscores the importance of accurate HCV subtyping. The frequency of “extra-target” RAS suggests the need for RAS screening in all three DAA target regions