Efficacy of the inactivated nervous necrosis virus vaccine against viral nervous necrosis in pond-reared orange-spotted grouper Epinephelus coioides

The field efficacy of the formalin-inactivated nervous necrosis virus (NNV) against viral nervous necrosis (VNN) in orange-spotted grouper (Epinephelus coioides) reared in floating net cages in earthen pond was investigated. Seroneutralization assay conducted on the sera of vaccinated fish exhibited the occurrence of neutralizing antibody titers from Day 30 (mean titer 1:1792±701) to Day 150 (1:704±351) with the highest titer observed at Day 60 (1:6656±3435) post-vaccination. Because mortality attributed to VNN was not encountered during the pond experiment, intramuscular challenges of vaccinated and unvaccinated (L-15 injected) fish with NNV (106.5 TCID50/fish) were conducted in indoor tanks at Day 30 (Mean body weight [MBW]: vaccinated [21±3.4 g]; unvaccinated [20.6±1 g) and Day 120 (MBW: vaccinated [178±27 g]; unvaccinated [176±19 g) postvaccination, respectively, to demonstrate the in vivo efficacy of the inactivated vaccine. Nil and 25 % mortality rate were obtained in vaccinated and control fish, respectively, challenged with NNV at Day 30 post-vaccination. On the contrary, nil mortality were obtained in both groups challenged with NNV at Day 120 post-vaccination. Although nil mortality was obtained in NNV-challenged unvaccinated fish, 30 % of the fish manifested dark coloration of the skin and abnormal swimming behavior that commenced and disappeared at Day 3 and Day 7 post-NNV challenge, respectively, suggesting an age/ weight-dependent resistance to the disease. Our current data illustrate that single vaccination with inactivated vaccine could mount the production of protective antibodies and concomitant conferment of protection against VNN in groupers especially during the early phase of grow-out culture in earthen ponds where they are highly susceptible to the disease.This study was funded by Government of Japan Trust Fund VI through the Regional Fish Disease Project (study code: FH01- F2015-T) and in part by SEAFDEC/ AQD. We express our heartfelt gratitude to Dr. Takuro Shibuno and Dr. Chihaya Nakayasu, former GOJ-TF managers, Dr. Koh Ichiro Mori, current GOJ-TF manager, and the Marine Fish Hatchery staff especially Mr. A. Gamuza

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Effect of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor and angiotensin receptor blocker initiation on organ support-free days in patients hospitalized with COVID-19

IMPORTANCE Overactivation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) may contribute to poor clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19. Objective To determine whether angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) initiation improves outcomes in patients hospitalized for COVID-19. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In an ongoing, adaptive platform randomized clinical trial, 721 critically ill and 58 non–critically ill hospitalized adults were randomized to receive an RAS inhibitor or control between March 16, 2021, and February 25, 2022, at 69 sites in 7 countries (final follow-up on June 1, 2022). INTERVENTIONS Patients were randomized to receive open-label initiation of an ACE inhibitor (n = 257), ARB (n = 248), ARB in combination with DMX-200 (a chemokine receptor-2 inhibitor; n = 10), or no RAS inhibitor (control; n = 264) for up to 10 days. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was organ support–free days, a composite of hospital survival and days alive without cardiovascular or respiratory organ support through 21 days. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model. Odds ratios (ORs) greater than 1 represent improved outcomes. RESULTS On February 25, 2022, enrollment was discontinued due to safety concerns. Among 679 critically ill patients with available primary outcome data, the median age was 56 years and 239 participants (35.2%) were women. Median (IQR) organ support–free days among critically ill patients was 10 (–1 to 16) in the ACE inhibitor group (n = 231), 8 (–1 to 17) in the ARB group (n = 217), and 12 (0 to 17) in the control group (n = 231) (median adjusted odds ratios of 0.77 [95% bayesian credible interval, 0.58-1.06] for improvement for ACE inhibitor and 0.76 [95% credible interval, 0.56-1.05] for ARB compared with control). The posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitors and ARBs worsened organ support–free days compared with control were 94.9% and 95.4%, respectively. Hospital survival occurred in 166 of 231 critically ill participants (71.9%) in the ACE inhibitor group, 152 of 217 (70.0%) in the ARB group, and 182 of 231 (78.8%) in the control group (posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitor and ARB worsened hospital survival compared with control were 95.3% and 98.1%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this trial, among critically ill adults with COVID-19, initiation of an ACE inhibitor or ARB did not improve, and likely worsened, clinical outcomes. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT0273570

Thyroid hormone surges during milkfish metamorphosis

Both thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3) were detected in fertilized eggs and larvae of milkfish. The concentration of T4 was lower than that of T3 only in fertilized eggs and newly-hatched larvae. The total body concentrations of both thyroid hormones decreased after hatching. The T4 concentration fluctuated at relatively low levels during the first week after hatching, increased gradually during the next 2 weeks and was highest in 4-week-old larvae. On the other hand, T3 was undetectable in samples taken between days 3 and 11, showed a gradual increase beginning on day 13 and was highest in 27 day old larvae. The concentrations of both T4 and T3 declined again in 31-day-old juveniles. The peak corresponds with the development of silver coloration in hatchery-reared milkfish and the inshore milkfish and the inshore migration of larvae in the wild, suggesting a role for thyroid hormones during early development of this species

Milkfish R&D in the Philippines

Culture of milkfish in brackish water ponds has been practiced for many years in the Philippines and recently its culture has expanded to fish cages in marine waters. Following the spontaneous spawning of milkfish in floating net cages in 1979, protocols for its seed production were developed. Studies to determine sustainable culture techniques in ponds and cages were conducted. Studies on nutritional requirements of milkfish at different developmental stages were done to reduce dependence on live prey organisms during hatchery operations and optimize feed formulations for nursery and grow-out cultures. In recent years, research geared towards the environmental impact of milkfish culture and ways to mitigate the negative effects of intensive farming practices. Prospects for the milkfish industry are discussed in light of the recent advances in milkfish R&D and Philippine government initiatives to increase fish production by mariculture

Milkfish hatchery and nursery production in the Philippines

Milkfish is the most important farmed fish species in the Philippines. In the last 5 years, milkfish production has been increasing. Culture of milkfish in brackishwater ponds still contributes most to milkfish production, although production from marine cages has been on the rise, recently. To sustain milkfish production, a reliable supply of good quality seeds is imperative. Following the spontaneous spawning of milkfish in floating net cages in 1979, protocols for broodstock management, breeding and seed production were developed and these have been continuously refined over the years. Compared to Indonesia and Taiwan, however, commercialization of milkfish seed production in the Philippines, took a long time to take off. Currently, there are a number of government-run and private milkfish hatcheries in operation. In contrast, milkfish fingerling production in brackishwater ponds has long been practiced in the Philippines and is an industry in itself. Traditionally, milkfish fry were from catch from the wild. Recently, more and more come from local hatcheries as well as fry imported from neighboring countries like Indonesia and Taiwan. Prospects for the milkfish hatchery and nursery industries are discussed in light of the Philippine government initiatives to increase fish production, including milkfish, through mariculture as well as by improving production efficiency in other traditional culture systems

Milkfish aquaculture: Alternate-day feeding strategy for reducing cost of milkfish culture in brackishwater ponds and marine cages in the Philippines

This podcast provides information on how an alternate-day feeding strategy can be used to reduce costs for culturing milkfish in ponds or marine cages.Program activities are funded by Grant No. EPP-A-00-06-00012-00 from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and by participating US and Host Country institutions. These include Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center-Aquaculture Department (SEAFDEC AQD, Iloilo, Philippines), Central Luzon State University (Muñoz, the Philippines), North Carolina State University (Raleigh, NC, USA), and the NOAA Milford Laboratory (Milford, CT, USA).Englis

Supporting ASEAN good aquaculture practices: Preventing the spread of trans-boundary aquatic animal diseases

The FAO Fishery Statistics had indicated that Asia is the top producer of fish and fishery products from both capture fisheries and aquaculture. Specifically, Southeast Asia had contributed 9-31% of the total aquaculture production in Asia from 1950 to 2014 with Indonesia and the Philippines accounting for the most at 23-63% and 10-45% of the total, respectively. Aquaculture has been viewed as a solution to the growing concern on food security issues as well as for the socio-economic stability of many countries in Southeast Asia. For such reason, aquaculture operations are being intensified to compensate for the declining production from capture fisheries and in order to nail the gap between supply and demand for fish and fishery products in the world. With intensification, aquaculture production has already overtaken the contribution of capture fisheries to the world’s total fisheries production. However, concerns on the safety and quality of aquaculture products have been raised as result of intensified fish farming operations. Added to such concern is the irresponsible introduction of aquatic species for aquaculture that serve as carriers of pathogens. As a result, a large number of infectious aquatic diseases have emerged threatening the sustainability of aquaculture in the Southeast Asian region. In an effort to address the emergence of transboundary diseases in the region, the Aquaculture Department of SEAFDEC (SEAFDEC/AQD) launched a program on Healthy and Wholesome Aquaculture which includes as one of its main objectives, the need to continue improving aquaculture production through innovations in fish health management

Gonadal Steroids Delay Spontaneous Flounder Metamorphosis and Inhibit T_3-induced Fin Ray Shortening in vitro(Endocrinology)

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