Transmission routes of African swine fever virus to domestic pigs: current knowledge and future research directions

African swine fever (ASF) is a major threat to the pig industry in Europe. Since 2007, ASF outbreaks have been ongoing in the Caucasus, Eastern Europe and the Baltic countries, causing severe economic losses for many pig farmers and pork producers. In addition, the number of ASF cases in wild boar populations has dramatically increased over the past few years. Evidence supports direct contact with infectious domestic pigs and wild boars, and consumption of contaminated feed, as the main transmission routes of ASF virus (ASFV) to domestic pigs. However, significant knowledge gaps highlight the urgent need for research to investigate the dynamics of indirect transmission via the environment, the minimal infective doses for contaminated feed ingestion, the probability of effective contacts between infectious wild boars and domestic pigs, the potential for recovered animals to become carriers and a reservoir for transmission, the potential virus persistence within wild boar populations and the influence of human behaviour for the spread of ASFV. This will provide an improved scientific basis to optimise current interventions and develop new tools and strategies to reduce the risk of ASFV transmission to domestic pigs.ISSN:0042-490

Electrical stimulation of cardiac adipose tissue-derived progenitor cells modulates cell phenotype and genetic machinery

A major challenge of cardiac tissue engineering is directing cells to establish the physiological structure and function of the myocardium being replaced. Our aim was to examine the effect of electrical stimulation on the cardiodifferentiation potential of cardiac adipose tissue-derived progenitor cells (cardiac ATDPCs). Three different electrical stimulation protocols were tested; the selected protocol consisted of 2ms monophasic square-wave pulses of 50mV/cm at 1Hz over 14days. Cardiac and subcutaneous ATDPCs were grown on biocompatible patterned surfaces. Cardiomyogenic differentiation was examined by real-time PCR and immunocytofluorescence. In cardiac ATDPCs, MEF2A and GATA-4 were significantly upregulated at day 14 after stimulation, while subcutaneous ATDPCs only exhibited increased Cx43 expression. In response to electrical stimulation, cardiac ATDPCs elongated, and both cardiac and subcutaneous ATDPCs became aligned following the linear surface pattern of the construct. Cardiac ATDPC length increased by 11.3%, while subcutaneous ATDPC length diminished by 11.2% (p=0.013 and p=0.030 vs unstimulated controls, respectively). Compared to controls, electrostimulated cells became aligned better to the patterned surfaces when the pattern was perpendicular to the electric field (89.71±28.47o for cardiac ATDPCs and 92.15±15.21o for subcutaneous ATDPCs). Electrical stimulation of cardiac ATDPCs caused changes in cell phenotype and genetic machinery, making them more suitable for cardiac regeneration approaches. Thus, it seems advisable to use electrical cell training before delivery as a cell suspension or within engineered tissue.Peer ReviewedPreprin

Development of Bioactive Patch for Maintenance of Implanted Cells at the Myocardial Infarcted Site

[EN] Ischemia produced as a result of myocardial infarction might cause moderate or severe tissue death. Studies under development propose grafting stem cells into the affected area and we hypothesize that this mechanism could be enhanced by the application of a "bioactive implant." The implant herein proposed consists of a thin porous elastomeric membrane, filled with self-assembling nanofibers and human subcutaneous adipose tissue derived progenitor cells. We describe the development and characterization of two elastomeric membranes: poly(ethyl acrylate) (PEA) and poly(caprolactone 2-(methacryloyloxy) ethyl ester) (PCLMA). Both are a good material support to deliver cells within a soft self-assembling peptide and are elastic enough to withstand the stresses arising from the heartbeat. Both developed composites (PEA and PCLMA, combined with self-assembling peptide) equally facilitate the propagation of electrical pulses and maintain their genetic profile of the seeded cells. Preliminary studies with small animal models suggest that, at short times, the bioimplant shows good adhesion with the myocardium. After three days cells loaded in the patch remain alive at the implanted site. We propose that the bioactive patch (elastomeric membranes with self-assembling peptide and cells) could increase the efficacy of future cardiac cell therapy by improving cell immobilization and survival at the affected site.The authors wish to thank the Department of Cardiac Surgery (Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol, Badalona) for their collaboration in obtaining human samples, Dr. Bago for his kind contribution in the cell transduction process and BLI analysis, and Joan Gilabert from Biomaterials Laboratory (GEMAT, IQS-School of Engineering) who kindly helped them with wettability measurements. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under Grant agreement no. 229239. This work was also supported by Grants from Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia (SAF2011-30067-C02-01 and M. Arnal-Pastor FPU 2009-1870 grant), Red de Terapia Celular-TerCel (RD12/0019/0029), Red Cardio-vascular (RD12/0042/0047), and Fundacio La Marato de TV3 (122232).Castells-Sala, C.; Vallés Lluch, A.; Soler-Botija, C.; Arnal Pastor, MP.; Martínez Ramos, C.; Fernandez-Muinos, T.; Mari-Buye, N.... (2015). Development of Bioactive Patch for Maintenance of Implanted Cells at the Myocardial Infarcted Site. Journal of Nanomaterials. (804017). https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/804017S80401

Overview of recent TJ-II stellarator results

The main results obtained in the TJ-II stellarator in the last two years are reported. The most important topics investigated have been modelling and validation of impurity transport, validation of gyrokinetic simulations, turbulence characterisation, effect of magnetic configuration on transport, fuelling with pellet injection, fast particles and liquid metal plasma facing components. As regards impurity transport research, a number of working lines exploring several recently discovered effects have been developed: the effect of tangential drifts on stellarator neoclassical transport, the impurity flux driven by electric fields tangent to magnetic surfaces and attempts of experimental validation with Doppler reflectometry of the variation of the radial electric field on the flux surface. Concerning gyrokinetic simulations, two validation activities have been performed, the comparison with measurements of zonal flow relaxation in pellet-induced fast transients and the comparison with experimental poloidal variation of fluctuations amplitude. The impact of radial electric fields on turbulence spreading in the edge and scrape-off layer has been also experimentally characterized using a 2D Langmuir probe array. Another remarkable piece of work has been the investigation of the radial propagation of small temperature perturbations using transfer entropy. Research on the physics and modelling of plasma core fuelling with pellet and tracer-encapsulated solid-pellet injection has produced also relevant results. Neutral beam injection driven Alfvénic activity and its possible control by electron cyclotron current drive has been examined as well in TJ-II. Finally, recent results on alternative plasma facing components based on liquid metals are also presentedThis work has been carried out within the framework of the EUROfusion Consortium and has received funding from the Euratom research and training programme 2014–2018 under Grant Agreement No. 633053. It has been partially funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Inovación y Universidades of Spain under projects ENE2013-48109-P, ENE2015-70142-P and FIS2017-88892-P. It has also received funds from the Spanish Government via mobility grant PRX17/00425. The authors thankfully acknowledge the computer resources at MareNostrum and the technical support provided by the Barcelona S.C. It has been supported as well by The Science and Technology Center in Ukraine (STCU), Project P-507F

Scientific Opinion on African swine fever

The risk for endemicity of ASF in the eastern neighbouring countries of the EU and spread of ASFV to unaffected areas was updated until 31/01/2014. The assessment was based on a literature review and expert knowledge elicitation. The risk that ASF is endemic in Georgia, Armenia and the Russian Federation has increased from moderate to high, particularly due to challenges in outbreak control in the backyard production sector. The risk that ASFV will spread further into unaffected areas from these countries, mainly through movement of contaminated pork, infected pigs or contaminated vehicles, has remained high. In Ukraine and Belarus, the risk for ASF endemicity was considered moderate. Although only few outbreaks have been reported, which have been stamped out, only limited activities are ongoing to facilitate early detection of secondary spread. Further, there is a continuous risk of ASFV re-introduction from the Russian Federation, due to transboundary movements of people, pork or infected wild boar. The number of backyard farms is greatest in the west of Ukraine and westwards spread of ASFV could result in an infected area near the EU border, difficult to control. In Georgia, Armenia and the Russian Federation, the risk for endemicity of ASF in the wild boar population is considered moderate, mainly due to spill-over from the domestic pig population, whereas in Ukraine and Belarus this was considered to be low. In those areas in the Russian Federation where wild boar density is high, this risk may be higher. Intensive hunting pressure in affected wild boar populations may increase the risk for spread, possibly with severe implications across international borders. The risk for different matrices to be infected/contaminated and maintain infectious ASFV at the moment of transportation into the EU was assessed and ranged from very high for frozen meat, to very low for crops

A reliable enzyme linked immunosorbent assay for African swine fever using the major structural protein as antigenic reagent

The VP73 structural protein is a major viral protein in MS cells infected with African swine fever virus. It can be purified by simple extraction from the cytoplasmic fraction of infected cells and used as an effective antigen in ELISA studies. © 1981 Springer-Verlag

Electrical stimulation of cardiac adipose tissue-derived progenitor cells modulates cell phenotype and genetic machinery

A major challenge of cardiac tissue engineering is directing cells to establish the physiological structure and function of the myocardium being replaced. Our aim was to examine the effect of electrical stimulation on the cardiodifferentiation potential of cardiac adipose tissue-derived progenitor cells (cardiac ATDPCs). Three different electrical stimulation protocols were tested; the selected protocol consisted of 2 ms monophasic square-wave pulses of 50 mV/cm at 1 Hz over 14 days. Cardiac and subcutaneous ATDPCs were grown on biocompatible patterned surfaces. Cardiomyogenic differentiation was examined by real-time PCR and immunocytofluorescence. In cardiac ATDPCs, MEF2A and GATA-4 were significantly upregulated at day 14 after stimulation, while subcutaneous ATDPCs only exhibited increased Cx43 expression. In response to electrical stimulation, cardiac ATDPCs elongated, and both cardiac and subcutaneous ATDPCs became aligned following the linear surface pattern of the construct. Cardiac ATDPC length increased by 11.3%, while subcutaneous ATDPC length diminished by 11.2% (p = 0.013 and p = 0.030 vs unstimulated controls, respectively). Compared to controls, electrostimulated cells became aligned better to the patterned surfaces when the pattern was perpendicular to the electric field (89.71 ± 28.47º for cardiac ATDPCs and 92.15 ± 15.21º for subcutaneous ATDPCs). Electrical stimulation of cardiac ATDPCs caused changes in cell phenotype and genetic machinery, making them more suitable for cardiac regeneration approaches. Thus, it seems advisable to use electrical cell training before delivery as a cell suspension or within engineered tissue

Confinement transitions in TJ-II under Li-coated wall conditions

This paper presents the latest results on confinement studies in the TJ-II stellarator. The inherently strong plasma-wall interaction of TJ-II has been successfully reduced after lithium coating by vacuum evaporation. Besides H retention and low Z, Li was chosen because there exists a reactor-oriented interest in this element, thus giving special relevance to the investigation of its properties. The Li-coating has led to important changes in plasma performance. Particularly, the effective density limit in NBI plasmas has been extended reaching central values of 8 × 1019 m-3 and Te ≈ 250-300 eV, with peaked density, rather flat Te profiles and higher ion temperatures. Due to the achieved density control, a second type of transition has been added to the low density ones previously observed in ECRH plasmas: higher density transitions characterized by the fall in Hα emission, the onset of steep density gradient and the reduction in the turbulence; which are characteristics of transition to the H mode. Confinement studies in ECH plasmas indicate that lowest order magnetic resonances, even in a low shear environment, locally reduce the effective electron heat diffusivities, while Alfven eigenmodes destabilized in NBI plasmas can influence fast ion confinement

Evaluation of uncertainties in mean and extreme precipitation under climate change for northwestern Mediterranean watersheds from high-resolution Med and Euro-CORDEX ensembles

The climate change impact on mean and extreme precipitation events in the northern Mediterranean region is assessed using high-resolution EuroCORDEX and Med-CORDEX simulations. The focus is made on three regions, Lez and Aude located in France, and Muga located in northeastern Spain, and eight pairs of global and regional climate models are analyzed with respect to the SAFRAN product. First the model skills are evaluated in terms of bias for the precipitation annual cycle over historical period. Then future changes in extreme precipitation, under two emission scenarios, are estimated through the computation of past/future change coefficients of quantile-ranked model precipitation outputs. Over the 1981-2010 period, the cumulative precipitation is overestimated for most models over the mountainous regions and underestimated over the coastal regions in autumn and higher-order quantile. The ensemble mean and the spread for future period remain unchanged under RCP4.5 scenario and decrease under RCP8.5 scenario. Extreme precipitation events are intensified over the three catchments with a smaller ensemble spread under RCP8.5 revealing more evident changes, especially in the later part of the 21st century