Semi-Wild Population of Kulans in the Bukhara Breeding Centre and Their Co-Habitation with Przewalski’s Horses

Asiatic wild asses and Przewalski\u27s horses initially inhabited steppe, semi-desert and desert areas, but Przewalski\u27s horses became extinct in the wild, and kulans are under threat of disappearance. The Bukhara Breeding Centre (Uzbekistan) was created in 1976 for conservation and reintroduction of wild ungulate species. In 1977-1978, five kulans (two males and three females) from Barsa-Kelmes Island on the Aral lake were introduced to the reserve. The group increased to 25-30 animals in 1995-1998, when five Przewalski\u27s horses from Moscow and St. Petersburg zoos were introduced to the same territory. We analyzed the home ranges, preferred habitats and social interactions of these closely related species during 1995-1999 by season and group composition. Horses and kulans each formed a reproductive group and a secondary bachelor group. The home range of the secondary group in both species was larger then that of the reproductive group and seemed to be less dependent on watering places. Kulans and Przewalski\u27s horses demonstrated different strategies of habitat use. They can share one area without serious conflicts, avoiding competition by the temporal differentiation in the usage of key sites

Semi-Wild Population of Kulans in the Bukhara Breeding Centre and Their Co-Habitation with Przewalski’s Horses

Asiatic wild asses and Przewalski\u27s horses initially inhabited steppe, semi-desert and desert areas, but Przewalski\u27s horses became extinct in the wild, and kulans are under threat of disappearance. The Bukhara Breeding Centre (Uzbekistan) was created in 1976 for conservation and reintroduction of wild ungulate species. In 1977-1978, five kulans (two males and three females) from Barsa-Kelmes Island on the Aral lake were introduced to the reserve. The group increased to 25-30 animals in 1995-1998, when five Przewalski\u27s horses from Moscow and St. Petersburg zoos were introduced to the same territory. We analyzed the home ranges, preferred habitats and social interactions of these closely related species during 1995-1999 by season and group composition. Horses and kulans each formed a reproductive group and a secondary bachelor group. The home range of the secondary group in both species was larger then that of the reproductive group and seemed to be less dependent on watering places. Kulans and Przewalski\u27s horses demonstrated different strategies of habitat use. They can share one area without serious conflicts, avoiding competition by the temporal differentiation in the usage of key sites

Comparative Study of Paraneoplastic and Nonparaneoplastic Autoimmune Encephalitis With GABA_BR Antibodies

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: While patients with paraneoplastic autoimmune encephalitis (AE) with gamma-aminobutyric-acid B receptor antibodies (GABABR-AE) have poor functional outcomes and high mortality, the prognosis of nonparaneoplastic cases has not been well studied. METHODS: Patients with GABABR-AE from the French and the Dutch Paraneoplastic Neurologic Syndromes Reference Centers databases were retrospectively included and their data collected; the neurologic outcomes of paraneoplastic and nonparaneoplastic cases were compared. Immunoglobulin G (IgG) isotyping and human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genotyping were performed in patients with available samples. RESULTS: A total of 111 patients (44/111 [40%] women) were enrolled, including 84 of 111 (76%) paraneoplastic and 18 of 111 (16%) nonparaneoplastic cases (cancer status was undetermined for 9 patients). Patients presented with seizures (88/111 [79%]), cognitive impairment (54/111 [49%]), and/or behavioral disorders (34/111 [31%]), and 54 of 111 (50%) were admitted in intensive care unit (ICU). Nonparaneoplastic patients were significantly younger (median age 54 years [range 19-88] vs 67 years [range 50-85] for paraneoplastic cases, p &lt; 0.001) and showed a different demographic distribution. Nonparaneoplastic patients more often had CSF pleocytosis (17/17 [100%] vs 58/78 [74%], p = 0.02), were almost never associated with KTCD16-abs (1/16 [6%] vs 61/70 [87%], p &lt; 0.001), and were more frequently treated with second-line immunotherapy (11/18 [61%] vs 18/82 [22%], p = 0.003). However, no difference of IgG subclass or HLA association was observed, although sample size was small (10 and 26 patients, respectively). After treatment, neurologic outcome was favorable (mRS ≤2) for 13 of 16 (81%) nonparaneoplastic and 37 of 84 (48%) paraneoplastic cases (p = 0.03), while 3 of 18 (17%) and 42 of 83 (51%) patients had died at last follow-up (p = 0.008), respectively. Neurologic outcome no longer differed after adjustment for confounding factors but seemed to be negatively associated with increased age and ICU admission. A better survival was associated with nonparaneoplastic cases, a younger age, and the use of immunosuppressive drugs. DISCUSSION: Nonparaneoplastic GABABR-AE involved younger patients without associated KCTD16-abs and carried better neurologic and vital prognoses than paraneoplastic GABABR-AE, which might be due to a more intensive treatment strategy. A better understanding of immunologic mechanisms underlying both forms is needed.</p

Moose: An integrated multi-site system of NW Mediterranean marine and atmospheric observatories

Despite intensive research efforts undertaken in the Mediterranean Sea over more than a century, an integrated view of its evolution, viewed in the climate change and anthropogenic pressure, still lacks. In this context, a Mediterranean Ocean Observing System on Environment (MOOSE) has been set up as an interactive, distributed and integrated observatory system of the NW Mediterranean Sea to detect and identify long-term environmental anomalies. It will be based on a multisite system of continental shelf and deep-sea fixed stations as well as Lagrangian platform network to observe the spatio-temporal variability of processes interacting between the coastal-open ocean and the ocean-atmosphere components. Another target is to build efficient indicators of the health of the NW Mediterranean basin. MOOSE will also provide a large flux of realtime data to facilitate validation of operational oceanographic models. It will supply and maintain long-term time series, the only data sets that allow to evidence climatic trends. Finally, MOOSE project is supported by the Inter-Organization Environment Committee (CIO-E) and INSU to stimulate the national scientific community and European partners for a significant multidisciplinary program

MicroRNA-122: A Novel Hepatocyte-Enriched in vitro Marker of Drug-Induced Cellular Toxicity

Emerging hepatic models for the study of drug-induced toxicity include pluripotent stem cell-derived hepatocyte-like cells (HLCs) and complex hepatocyte-non-parenchymal cellular coculture to mimic the complex multicellular interactions that recapitulate the niche environment in the human liver. However, a specific marker of hepatocyte perturbation, required to discriminate hepatocyte damage from non-specific cellular toxicity contributed by non-hepatocyte cell types or immature differentiated cells is currently lacking, as the cytotoxicity assays routinely used in in vitro toxicology research depend on intracellular molecules which are ubiquitously present in all eukaryotic cell types. In this study, we demonstrate that microRNA-122 (miR-122) detection in cell culture media can be used as a hepatocyte-enriched in vitro marker of drug-induced toxicity in homogeneous cultures of hepatic cells, and a cell-specific marker of toxicity of hepatic cells in heterogeneous cultures such as HLCs generated from various differentiation protocols and pluripotent stem cell lines, where conventional cytotoxicity assays using generic cellular markers may not be appropriate. We show that the sensitivity of the miR-122 cytotoxicity assay is similar to conventional assays that measure lactate dehydrogenase activity and intracellular adenosine triphosphate when applied in hepatic models with high levels of intracellular miR-122, and can be multiplexed with other assays. MiR-122 as a biomarker also has the potential to bridge results in in vitro experiments to in vivo animal models and human samples using the same assay, and to link findings from clinical studies in determining the relevance of in vitro models being developed for the study of drug-induced liver injury