Genomic Signatures of Human versus Avian Influenza A Viruses

Fifty-two species-associated amino acid residues were found between human and avian influenza viruses

Screening immune adjuvants for an inactivated vaccine against Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae

In this study, we screened adjuvants for an inactivated vaccine against Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae (E. rhusiopathiae). Inactivated cells of E. rhusiopathiae strain HG-1 were prepared as the antigen in five adjuvanted inactivated vaccines, including a mineral-oil-adjuvanted vaccine (Oli vaccine), aluminum-hydroxide-gel-adjuvanted vaccine (Alh vaccine), ISA201-biphasic-oil-emulsion-adjuvanted vaccine (ISA201 vaccine), GEL02-water-soluble-polymer-adjuvanted vaccine (GEL vaccine), and IMS1313-water-soluble-nanoparticle-adjuvanted vaccine (IMS1313 vaccine). The safety test results of subcutaneous inoculation in mice showed that Oli vaccine had the most severe side effects, with a combined score of 35, followed by the ISA201 vaccine (25 points), Alh vaccine (20 points), GEL vaccine (10 points), and IMS1313 vaccine (10 points). A dose of 1.5LD50 of strain HG-1 was used to challenge the mice intraperitoneally, 14 days after their second immunization. The protective efficacy of Oli vaccine and Alh vaccine was 100% (8/8), whereas that of the other three adjuvanted vaccines was 88% (7/8). Challenge with 2.5LD50 of strain HG-1 resulted in a 100% survival rate, demonstrating the 100% protective efficacy of the Oli vaccine, followed by the GEL vaccine (71%, 5/7), IMS1313 vaccine (57%, 4/7), ISA201 vaccine (43%, 3/7), and Alh vaccine (29%, 2/7). Challenge with 4LD50 of strain HG-1 showed 100% (7/7) protective efficacy of the Oli vaccine and 71% (5/7) protective efficacy of the GEL vaccine, whereas the protective efficacy of other three adjuvanted vaccine was 14% (1/7). The Alh and GEL vaccines were selected for comparative tests in piglets, and both caused minor side effects. A second immunization with these two adjuvanted vaccines conferred 60 and 100% protective efficacy, respectively, after the piglets were challenged via an ear vein with 8LD100 of strain HG-1. After challenge with 16LD100 of strain HG-1, the Alh and GEL vaccines showed 40% and 100% protective efficacy, respectively. Our results suggested that GEL is the optimal adjuvant for an inactivated vaccine against E. rhusiopathiae

Towards a global One Health index: a potential assessment tool for One Health performance

BACKGROUND: A One Health approach has been increasingly mainstreamed by the international community, as it provides for holistic thinking in recognizing the close links and inter-dependence of the health of humans, animals and the environment. However, the dearth of real-world evidence has hampered application of a One Health approach in shaping policies and practice. This study proposes the development of a potential evaluation tool for One Health performance, in order to contribute to the scientific measurement of One Health approach and the identification of gaps where One Health capacity building is most urgently needed. METHODS: We describe five steps towards a global One Health index (GOHI), including (i) framework formulation; (ii) indicator selection; (iii) database building; (iv) weight determination; and (v) GOHI scores calculation. A cell-like framework for GOHI is proposed, which comprises an external drivers index (EDI), an intrinsic drivers index (IDI) and a core drivers index (CDI). We construct the indicator scheme for GOHI based on this framework after multiple rounds of panel discussions with our expert advisory committee. A fuzzy analytical hierarchy process is adopted to determine the weights for each of the indicators. RESULTS: The weighted indicator scheme of GOHI comprises three first-level indicators, 13 second-level indicators, and 57 third-level indicators. According to the pilot analysis based on the data from more than 200 countries/territories the GOHI scores overall are far from ideal (the highest score of 65.0 out of a maximum score of 100), and we found considerable variations among different countries/territories (31.8–65.0). The results from the pilot analysis are consistent with the results from a literature review, which suggests that a GOHI as a potential tool for the assessment of One Health performance might be feasible. CONCLUSIONS: GOHI—subject to rigorous validation—would represent the world’s first evaluation tool that constructs the conceptual framework from a holistic perspective of One Health. Future application of GOHI might promote a common understanding of a strong One Health approach and provide reference for promoting effective measures to strengthen One Health capacity building. With further adaptations under various scenarios, GOHI, along with its technical protocols and databases, will be updated regularly to address current technical limitations, and capture new knowledge. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT: [Image: see text] SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40249-022-00979-9

Decoupled and Memory-Reinforced Networks: Towards Effective Feature Learning for One-Step Person Search

The goal of person search is to localize and match query persons from scene images. For high efficiency, one-step methods have been developed to jointly handle the pedestrian detection and identification sub-tasks using a single network. There are two major challenges in the current one-step approaches. One is the mutual interference between the optimization objectives of multiple sub-tasks. The other is the sub-optimal identification feature learning caused by small batch size when end-to-end training. To overcome these problems, we propose a decoupled and memory-reinforced network (DMRNet). Specifically, to reconcile the conflicts of multiple objectives, we simplify the standard tightly coupled pipelines and establish a deeply decoupled multi-task learning framework. Further, we build a memory-reinforced mechanism to boost the identification feature learning. By queuing the identification features of recently accessed instances into a memory bank, the mechanism augments the similarity pair construction for pairwise metric learning. For better encoding consistency of the stored features, a slow-moving average of the network is applied for extracting these features. In this way, the dual networks reinforce each other and converge to robust solution states. Experimentally, the proposed method obtains 93.2% and 46.9% mAP on CUHK-SYSU and PRW datasets, which exceeds all the existing one-step methods.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures. Accepted by AAAI 202

Antimicrobial Effects of Minocycline, Tigecycline, Ciprofloxacin, and Levofloxacin against Elizabethkingia anophelis Using In Vitro Time-Kill Assays and In Vivo Zebrafish Animal Models

Elizabethkingia anophelis is a multidrug-resistant pathogen. This study evaluated the antimicrobial activity of minocycline, tigecycline, ciprofloxacin, and levofloxacin using in vitro time-kill assays and in vivo zebrafish animal models. The E. anophelis strain ED853-49 was arbitrarily selected from a bacterial collection which was concomitantly susceptible to minocycline, tigecycline, ciprofloxacin, and levofloxacin. The antibacterial activities of single agents at 0.5–4 × minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and dual-agent combinations at 2 × MIC using time-kill assays were investigated. The therapeutic effects of antibiotics in E. anophelis-infected zebrafish were examined. Both minocycline and tigecycline demonstrated bacteriostatic effects but no bactericidal effect. Minocycline at concentrations ≥2 × MIC and tigecycline at concentrations ≥3 × MIC exhibited a long-standing inhibitory effect for 48 h. Bactericidal effects were observed at ciprofloxacin and levofloxacin concentrations of ≥3 × MIC within 24 h of initial inoculation. Rapid regrowth of E. anophelis occurred after the initial killing phase when ciprofloxacin was used, regardless of the concentration. Levofloxacin treatment at the concentration of ≥2 × MIC consistently resulted in the long-lasting and sustainable inhibition of bacterial growth for 48 h. The addition of minocycline or tigecycline weakened the killing effect of fluoroquinolones during the first 10 h. The minocycline-ciprofloxacin or minocycline–levofloxacin combinations achieved the lowest colony-forming unit counts at 48 h. Zebrafish treated with minocycline or a combination of minocycline and levofloxacin had the highest survival rate (70%). The results of these in vitro and in vivo studies suggest that the combination of minocycline and levofloxacin is the most effective therapy approach for E. anophelis infection