Molecular detection of Torque teno virus in different breeds of swine

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Torque teno virus (TTV), of the <it>Anelloviridae </it>family, <it>Iotatorquevirus </it>genus, is a non-enveloped, single-stranded, and negative sense DNA (ssDNA) virus infecting human and many domestic animals including swines. Very little information is known about the investigations of TTV prevalence in different swine breeds so far.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In this study, 208 serum samples collected from seven swine breeds (<it>Rongchang pig</it>, <it>Chenghua pig</it>, <it>Zibet pig</it>, <it>Wild boar</it>, <it>Duroc</it>, <it>Landrace</it>, <it>Large Yorkshire</it>) from two independent farms were detected to determine the prevalence of two swine TTV genogroups, TTV1 and TTV 2, by nested polymerase chain reaction methods, and to analyse prevalence difference among these breeds.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The results showed that the prevalence of TTV in the seven breeds was 92%-100%. No significant difference (p > 0.05) in TTV infection was observed between different breeds. Interestingly, significantly higher prevalence for TTV1 in <it>Rongchang </it>boars (90%) and for TTV2 in <it>Rongchang </it>sows (95%) were detected, while co-infection rate (43.8%) was lower than other breeds. Sequence analysis showed that the homology of TTV1 and TTV2 were over 90.9% and 86.4% in these breeds, respectively.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The results indicated that TTV was widely distributed in the seven swine breeds. The prevalence of both TTV genogroups associated with swine breeds and genders. This study also respented the first description of swine TTV prevalence in different swine breeds. It was vitally necessary to further study swine TTV pathogenicity.</p

Pseudomonas aeruginosa Quorum-Sensing and Type VI Secretion System Can Direct Interspecific Coexistence During Evolution

It is reported that a wide range of bacterial infections are polymicrobial, and the members in a local microcommunity can influence the growth of neighbors through physical and chemical interactions. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an important opportunistic pathogen that normally causes a variety of acute and chronic infections, and clinical evidences suggest that P. aeruginosa can be frequently coisolated with other pathogens from the patients with chronic infections. However, the interspecific interaction and the coexisting mechanism of P. aeruginosa with coinfecting bacterial species during evolution still remain largely unclear. In this study, the relationships of P. aeruginosa with other Gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus) and Gram-negative (Klebsiella pneumoniae) are investigated by using a series of on-plate proximity assay, in vitro coevolution assay, and RNA-sequencing. We find that although the development of a quorum-sensing system contributes P. aeruginosa a significant growth advantage to compete with S. aureus and K. pneumoniae, the quorum-sensing regulation of P. aeruginosa will be decreased during evolution and thus provides a basis for the formation of interspecific coexistence. The results of comparative transcriptomic analyses suggest that the persistent survival of S. aureus in the microcommunity has no significant effect on the intracellular transcriptional pattern of P. aeruginosa, while a more detailed competition happens between P. aeruginosa and K. pneumoniae. Specifically, the population of P. aeruginosa with decreased quorum-sensing regulation can still restrict the proportion increase of K. pneumoniae by enhancing the type VI secretion system-elicited cell aggressivity during further coevolution. These findings provide a general explanation for the formation of a dynamic stable microcommunity consisting of more than two bacterial species, and may contribute to the development of population biology and clinical therapy

Case report: Targeted sequencing facilitates the diagnosis and management of rare multifocal pure ground-glass opacities with intrapulmonary metastasis

IntroductionTreatments for multiple ground-glass opacities (GGOs) for which the detection rate is increasing are still controversial. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) may provide additional key evidence for differential diagnosis or optimal therapeutic schedules.Case presentationWe first reported a rare case in which more than 100 bilateral pulmonary GGOs (91.7% of the GGOs were pure GGOs) were diagnosed as both multiple primary lung cancer and intrapulmonary metastasis. We performed NGS with an 808-gene panel to assess both somatic and germline alterations in tissues and plasma. The patient (male) underwent three successive surgeries and received osimertinib adjuvant therapy due to signs of metastasis and multiple EGFR-mutated tumors. The patient had multiple pure GGOs, and eight tumors of four pathological subtypes were evaluated for the clonal relationship. Metastasis, including pure GGOs and atypical adenomatous hyperplasia, was found between two pairs of tumors. Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) monitoring of disease status may impact clinical decision-making.ConclusionsSurgery combined with targeted therapies remains a reasonable alternative strategy for treating patients with multifocal GGOs, and NGS is valuable for facilitating diagnostic workup and adjuvant therapy with targeted drugs through tissue and disease monitoring via ctDNA

A Progressive Extended Kalman Filter Method for Freeway Traffic State Estimation Integrating Multisource Data

Variable techniques have been used to collect traffic data and estimate traffic conditions. In most cases, more than one technology is available. A legitimate need for research and application is how to use the heterogeneous data from multiple sources and provide reliable and consistent results. This paper aims to integrate the traffic features extracted from the wireless communication records and the measurements from the microwave sensors for the state estimation. A state-space model and a Progressive Extended Kalman Filter (PEKF) method are proposed. The results from the field test exhibit that the proposed method efficiently fuses the heterogeneous multisource data and adaptively tracks the variation of traffic conditions. The proposed method is satisfactory and promising for future development and implementation

Functionalized-graphene composites : fabrication and applications in sustainable energy and environment

Graphene, including pristine graphene and its analogues of graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide, is revolutionizing the way we design high performance devices, particularly in the areas of sustainable energy and environmental technologies. From environmental remediation and sensing to energy conversions and storage, there are many successful cases of graphene applications. Instead of being a standalone working material, graphene is almost always coupled with another active material as a composite. With its high surface-to-bulk ratio, efficient heat transfer, and electron conduction, the interfacing with graphene not only helps to overcome such limitations in the bare working material but actually accentuates them. To achieve this, the strategy of surface functionalization of graphene, with either soft matters (e.g., organics, molecular linkers, proteins) or solid inorganic matters (e.g., metal nanoparticles, oxide semiconductors), holds the key to enabling the fabrication of high performance composites. The resultant architectures, in which the graphene is applied to, yield the highest achievable properties and should be unique to the specific applications. This Review provides a bottom-up account encompassing the functionalization of graphene to the design of graphene-based composites and also their selected applications in high performance systems relevant to energy and the environment.37 page(s

Comprehensive Treatment of An Advanced Lung Cancer Patient with EGFR Driver Gene Positive

Lung cancer is the most common malignant tumor and the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Most of the patients have distant metastasis when visiting the doctor, which seriously affects the survival time and quality of life of the patients. With the development of molecular targeted drugs, lung cancer treatment has been transformed from traditional chemotherapy to targeted therapy and precision medicine has been gradually applied in clinical practice, which can make lung cancer patients live longer and have a better quality of life. We present a case of advanced lung cancer patient who presented to Department of Thoracic Surgery of Beijing Haidian Hospital five years ago. We chose the reasonable treatment options though the genetic tests and circulating tumor DNA tests. We summarized the adverse reactions in the whole course of treatment. The comprehensive therapy we utilized, including targeted therapy, chemotherapy, antiangiogenic agents and local radiotherapy, have resulted in our patient with remaining alive. For advanced non-small cell lung cancer with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation positive, individualized treatment was conducted based on precise genotyping and dynamic monitoring, which can not only control the tumor, but also have mild toxic and side effects. The survival time of the patients was prolonged and the quality of life was guaranteed

Behavioral heterogeneity in quorum sensing can stabilize social cooperation in microbial populations

Abstract Background Microbial communities are susceptible to the public goods dilemma, whereby individuals can gain an advantage within a group by utilizing, but not sharing the cost of producing, public goods. In bacteria, the development of quorum sensing (QS) can establish a cooperation system in a population by coordinating the production of costly and sharable extracellular products (public goods). Cooperators with intact QS system and robust ability in producing public goods are vulnerable to being undermined by QS-deficient defectors that escape from QS but benefit from the cooperation of others. Although microorganisms have evolved several mechanisms to resist cheating invasion in the public goods game, it is not clear why cooperators frequently coexist with defectors and how they form a relatively stable equilibrium during evolution. Results We show that in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, QS-directed social cooperation can select a conditional defection strategy prior to the emergence of QS-mutant defectors, depending on resource availability. Conditional defectors represent a QS-inactive state of wild type (cooperator) individual and can invade QS-activated cooperators by adopting a cheating strategy, and then revert to cooperating when there are abundant nutrient supplies irrespective of the exploitation of QS-mutant defector. Our mathematical modeling further demonstrates that the incorporation of conditional defection strategy into the framework of iterated public goods game with sound punishment mechanism can lead to the coexistence of cooperator, conditional defector, and defector in a rock-paper-scissors dynamics. Conclusions These findings highlight the importance of behavioral heterogeneity in stabilizing the population structure and provide a potential reasonable explanation for the maintenance and evolution of cooperation in microbial communities