Effect of usage / non-usage of antibiotics on virulence profiles of Escherichia coli in pig production

Pathogenic Escherichia coli pathogens are responsible for acute profuse diarrhoea in growing pig with resultant high morbidity and mortality. Enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) encoding STa, STb, EAST1 and LT enterotoxins and Shiga toxin E. coli (STEC) encoding Stx2e occur most commonly in pigs. This study investigated the prevalence of ETEC and VTEC virulence genes in two groups of growing pigs (five piglets per group) kept under routine farm management practices. One group was administered antibiotics and the other group received no antibiotics. A total of 241 E.coli strains were isolated in piglets from both groups between 0 and 70 days of age. Virulence genes were detected by PCR in 24.8% (18.2 - 32.7) of the antibiotic group isolates and 43.5% (34.5 - 52.9) of the non-antibiotic group with a significant difference (P = 0.002). The proportions of the virulence genes STa, STb, EAST1 and Stx2e were 18.1% (8.61 - 34.39), 0% (0.0 - 10.43), 78.7% (62.25 - 89.32) and 3% (0.53 - 15.32) in the antibiotic group respectively, and 14.8% (7.40 - 27.68), 8.5% (3.36 - 19.93), 85.1% (72.32 - 92.59) and 12.7% (5.98 - 25.17) in the non-antibiotic group respectively. AIDA1 was the most dominant non-fimbrial adhesion factor while F6 was the only fimbrial factor detected. Twelve pathotypes were identified, with pathotype EAST1 being the most prevalent. The study showed that usage/non-usage of antibiotics in growing pigs does not prevent occurrence of disease causing virulence genes and other factors may be involved.Poster presented at the University of Pretoria, Faculty of Veterinary Science Faculty Day, September 07, 2017, Pretoria, South Africa.ab201

Cosmological parameters from SDSS and WMAP

We measure cosmological parameters using the three-dimensional power spectrum P(k) from over 200,000 galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) in combination with WMAP and other data. Our results are consistent with a ``vanilla'' flat adiabatic Lambda-CDM model without tilt (n=1), running tilt, tensor modes or massive neutrinos. Adding SDSS information more than halves the WMAP-only error bars on some parameters, tightening 1 sigma constraints on the Hubble parameter from h~0.74+0.18-0.07 to h~0.70+0.04-0.03, on the matter density from Omega_m~0.25+/-0.10 to Omega_m~0.30+/-0.04 (1 sigma) and on neutrino masses from <11 eV to <0.6 eV (95%). SDSS helps even more when dropping prior assumptions about curvature, neutrinos, tensor modes and the equation of state. Our results are in substantial agreement with the joint analysis of WMAP and the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, which is an impressive consistency check with independent redshift survey data and analysis techniques. In this paper, we place particular emphasis on clarifying the physical origin of the constraints, i.e., what we do and do not know when using different data sets and prior assumptions. For instance, dropping the assumption that space is perfectly flat, the WMAP-only constraint on the measured age of the Universe tightens from t0~16.3+2.3-1.8 Gyr to t0~14.1+1.0-0.9 Gyr by adding SDSS and SN Ia data. Including tensors, running tilt, neutrino mass and equation of state in the list of free parameters, many constraints are still quite weak, but future cosmological measurements from SDSS and other sources should allow these to be substantially tightened.Comment: Minor revisions to match accepted PRD version. SDSS data and ppt figures available at http://www.hep.upenn.edu/~max/sdsspars.htm

Multiethnic meta-analysis identifies ancestry-specific and cross-ancestry loci for pulmonary function

Nearly 100 loci have been identified for pulmonary function, almost exclusively in studies of European ancestry populations. We extend previous research by meta-analyzing genome-wide association studies of 1000 Genomes imputed variants in relation to pulmonary function in a multiethnic population of 90,715 individuals of European (N = 60,552), African (N = 8429), Asian (N = 9959), and Hispanic/Latino (N = 11,775) ethnicities. We identify over 50 additional loci at genome-wide significance in ancestry-specific or multiethnic meta-analyses. Using recent fine-mapping methods incorporating functional annotation, gene expression, and differences in linkage disequilibrium between ethnicities, we further shed light on potential causal variants and genes at known and newly identified loci. Several of the novel genes encode proteins with predicted or established drug targets, including KCNK2 and CDK12. Our study highlights the utility of multiethnic and integrative genomics approaches to extend existing knowledge of the genetics of l

Search for jet extinction in the inclusive jet-pT spectrum from proton-proton collisions at s=8 TeV

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published articles title, journal citation, and DOI.The first search at the LHC for the extinction of QCD jet production is presented, using data collected with the CMS detector corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 10.7  fb−1 of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The extinction model studied in this analysis is motivated by the search for signatures of strong gravity at the TeV scale (terascale gravity) and assumes the existence of string couplings in the strong-coupling limit. In this limit, the string model predicts the suppression of all high-transverse-momentum standard model processes, including jet production, beyond a certain energy scale. To test this prediction, the measured transverse-momentum spectrum is compared to the theoretical prediction of the standard model. No significant deficit of events is found at high transverse momentum. A 95% confidence level lower limit of 3.3 TeV is set on the extinction mass scale

Searches for electroweak neutralino and chargino production in channels with Higgs, Z, and W bosons in pp collisions at 8 TeV

Searches for supersymmetry (SUSY) are presented based on the electroweak pair production of neutralinos and charginos, leading to decay channels with Higgs, Z, and W bosons and undetected lightest SUSY particles (LSPs). The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of about 19.5 fb(-1) of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV collected in 2012 with the CMS detector at the LHC. The main emphasis is neutralino pair production in which each neutralino decays either to a Higgs boson (h) and an LSP or to a Z boson and an LSP, leading to hh, hZ, and ZZ states with missing transverse energy (E-T(miss)). A second aspect is chargino-neutralino pair production, leading to hW states with E-T(miss). The decays of a Higgs boson to a bottom-quark pair, to a photon pair, and to final states with leptons are considered in conjunction with hadronic and leptonic decay modes of the Z and W bosons. No evidence is found for supersymmetric particles, and 95% confidence level upper limits are evaluated for the respective pair production cross sections and for neutralino and chargino mass values

Search for resonances decaying into photon pairs in 139 fb−1 of pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Searches for new resonances in the diphoton final state, with spin 0 as predicted by theories with an extended Higgs sector and with spin 2 using a warped extra-dimension benchmark model, are presented using 139 fb−1 of √s = 13 TeV pp collision data collected by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. No significant deviation from the Standard Model is observed and upper limits are placed on the production cross-section times branching ratio to two photons as a function of the resonance mass

Measurement of the top-quark mass using a leptonic invariant mass in pp collisions at s√ = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A measurement of the top-quark mass (mt) in the tt¯ → lepton + jets channel is presented, with an experimental technique which exploits semileptonic decays of b-hadrons produced in the top-quark decay chain. The distribution of the invariant mass mℓμ of the lepton, ℓ (with ℓ = e, μ), from the W-boson decay and the muon, μ, originating from the b-hadron decay is reconstructed, and a binned-template profile likelihood fit is performed to extract mt. The measurement is based on data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb−1 of s√ = 13 TeV pp collisions provided by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded by the ATLAS detector. The measured value of the top-quark mass is mt = 174.41 ± 0.39 (stat.) ± 0.66 (syst.) ± 0.25 (recoil) GeV, where the third uncertainty arises from changing the PYTHIA8 parton shower gluon-recoil scheme, used in top-quark decays, to a recently developed setup

Bacterial plasmids of agricultural and environmental importance

Many important characteristics of bacteria are determined by relatively small genetic elements known as bacterial plasmids. Such agriculturally and environmentally important bacterial characteristics as multiple antibiotic resistance in animal pathogens, nodulation and nitrogen fixation in Rhizobium-plant symbioses, crown gall formation by plant pathogenic Agrobacterium species and pesticide degradation by members of the genus Alcaligenes have been shown to be carried as part of transmissible plasmids. The widespread use of antibiotics in human and veterinary medicine and agriculture has resulted in the evolution and spread of multiple drug resistance plasmids. The problem of drug resistance might be overcome by reduction or pronhibition of the use of clinically important antibiotics for non-therapeutic purposes such as growth promotion or prophylaxis. An understanding of the role of plasmid-borne nitrogen fixation/nodulation characteristics of Rhizobium species may provide an alternative to the use of very expensive nitrogenous fertilizers. Studies of the plant pathogenic Agrobacterium have led to successful biological control of crown gall. Finally, the manipulation of pesticide degrading plasmids has already demonstrated their potential for reducing environmental pollution resulting from the widespread use of complex synthetic molecules in both industry and agriculture