Porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) infection decreases the efficacy of an attenuated classical swine fever virus (CSFV) vaccine

The Lapinized Philippines Coronel (LPC) vaccine, an attenuated strain of classical swine fever virus (CSFV), is an important tool for the prevention and control of CSFV infection and is widely and routinely used in most CSF endemic areas, including Taiwan. The aim of this study was to investigate whether PCV2 infection affects the efficacy of the LPC vaccine. Eighteen 6-week-old, cesarean-derived and colostrum-deprived (CDCD), crossbred pigs were randomly assigned to four groups. A total of 105.3 TCID50 of PCV2 was experimentally inoculated into pigs through both intranasal and intramuscular routes at 0 days post-inoculation (dpi) followed by LPC vaccination 12 days later. All the animals were challenged with wild-type CSFV (ALD stain) at 27 dpi and euthanized at 45 dpi. Following CSFV challenge, the LPC-vaccinated pigs pre-inoculated with PCV2 showed transient fever, viremia, and viral shedding in the saliva and feces. The number of IgM+, CD4+CD8-CD25+, CD4+CD8+CD25+, and CD4-CD8+CD25+ lymphocyte subsets and the level of neutralizing antibodies against CSFV were significantly higher in the animals with LPC vaccination alone than in the pigs with PCV2 inoculation/LPC vaccination. In addition, PCV2-derived inhibition of the CSFV-specific cell proliferative response of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) was demonstrated in an ex vivo experiment. These findings indicate that PCV2 infection decreases the efficacy of the LPC vaccine. This PCV2-derived interference may not only allow the invasion of wild-type CSFV in pig farms but also increases the difficulty of CSF prevention and control in CSF endemic areas

Identification of Biomarkers for Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma Using Feature Selection and Decision Tree Methods

Esophageal squamous cell cancer (ESCC) is one of the most common fatal human cancers. The identification of biomarkers for early detection could be a promising strategy to decrease mortality. Previous studies utilized microarray techniques to identify more than one hundred genes; however, it is desirable to identify a small set of biomarkers for clinical use. This study proposes a sequential forward feature selection algorithm to design decision tree models for discriminating ESCC from normal tissues. Two potential biomarkers of RUVBL1 and CNIH were identified and validated based on two public available microarray datasets. To test the discrimination ability of the two biomarkers, 17 pairs of expression profiles of ESCC and normal tissues from Taiwanese male patients were measured by using microarray techniques. The classification accuracies of the two biomarkers in all three datasets were higher than 90%. Interpretable decision tree models were constructed to analyze expression patterns of the two biomarkers. RUVBL1 was consistently overexpressed in all three datasets, although we found inconsistent CNIH expression possibly affected by the diverse major risk factors for ESCC across different areas

Diagnosis and treatment delay among pulmonary tuberculosis patients identified using the Taiwan reporting enquiry system, 2002–2006

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The tuberculosis reporting enquiry system was launched in Taiwan in 2001. Tuberculosis has been categorized as the third most important notifiable disease in Taiwan and the time required for reporting has been shortened to 7 days.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A total of 114,827 cases were reported using the Taiwan enquiry system between 2002 and 2006; of these, 26,027 (22.7%) were finally diagnosed as not being tuberculosis, 7,005 (8.2%) were diagnosed as extra-pulmonary tuberculosis and 3,677 (3.2%) were not a first-time diagnosis of tuberculosis, and these cases were hence excluded. Diagnosis time was defined as the length of time between the first medical examination (including chest radiography, sputum smear or sputum culture) to the diagnosis of PTB; treatment time was defined as the period from the diagnosis of PTB to the initiation of treatment. Using the cut-off at the 75^thpercentile, a period of longer than 9 days was defined as a <it>diagnosis delay </it>and a period of longer than 2 days as a <it>treatment delay</it>. Multiple logistic regression analysis was applied to analyze the risk factors associated with these delays.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>During the five-year study period, among the 78,118 new PTB patients reported in Taiwan, the mean diagnosis and treatment times were 12 and 5 days and the median times 1 day and 0 days, respectively. In total, 24.9% of the new PTB patients' diagnosis time delays were longer than 9 days and 20.3% of the patients' treatment time delays were longer than 2 days. The main factors associated with diagnosis delay included age, reporting year, living with family and a positive sputum culture (<it>p </it>< 0.0001); the risk factors significantly associated with treatment delay were increased age, an aboriginal ethnic background, a positive sputum culture and diagnosis at a non-medical center (<it>p </it>< 0.0001).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The Taiwan TB reporting enquiry system has successfully increased the confirmed PTB reporting rate from 64.4% to 71.5%. Greater age and a positive sputum culture were both found to significantly increase both diagnosis and treatment delays; treatment delay is also significantly affected by the patient having an aboriginal ethnic background and being diagnosed at a non-medical center.</p

Cross-reactivities and cross-neutralization of different envelope glycoproteins E2 antibodies against different genotypes of classical swine fever virus

Classical swine fever (CSF) is a highly contagious swine disease caused by the classical swine fever virus (CSFV), wreaking havoc on global swine production. The virus is divided into three genotypes, each comprising 4–7 sub-genotypes. The major envelope glycoprotein E2 of CSFV plays an essential role in cell attachment, eliciting immune responses, and vaccine development. In this study, to study the cross-reaction and cross-neutralizing activities of antibodies against different genotypes (G) of E2 glycoproteins, ectodomains of G1.1, G2.1, G2.1d, and G3.4 CSFV E2 glycoproteins from a mammalian cell expression system were generated. The cross-reactivities of a panel of immunofluorescence assay-characterized serum derived from pigs with/without a commercial live attenuated G1.1 vaccination against different genotypes of E2 glycoproteins were detected by ELISA. Our result showed that serum against the LPCV cross-reacted with all genotypes of E2 glycoproteins. To evaluate cross-neutralizing activities, hyperimmune serum from different CSFV E2 glycoprotein-immunized mice was also generated. The result showed that mice anti-E2 hyperimmune serum exhibited better neutralizing abilities against homologous CSFV than heterogeneous viruses. In conclusion, the results provide information on the cross-reactivity of antibodies against different genogroups of CSFV E2 glycoproteins and suggest the importance of developing multi-covalent subunit vaccines for the complete protection of CSF

Experimental quantum computational chemistry with optimised unitary coupled cluster ansatz

Simulation of quantum chemistry is one of the most promising applications of quantum computing. While recent experimental works have demonstrated the potential of solving electronic structures with variational quantum eigensolver (VQE), the implementations are either restricted to nonscalable (hardware efficient) or classically simulable (Hartree-Fock) ansatz, or limited to a few qubits with large errors for the more accurate unitary coupled cluster (UCC) ansatz. Here, integrating experimental and theoretical advancements of improved operations and dedicated algorithm optimisations, we demonstrate an implementation of VQE with UCC for H_2, LiH, F_2 from 4 to 12 qubits. Combining error mitigation, we produce high-precision results of the ground-state energy with error suppression by around two orders of magnitude. For the first time, we achieve chemical accuracy for H_2 at all bond distances and LiH at small bond distances in the experiment. Our work demonstrates a feasible path towards a scalable solution to electronic structure calculation, validating the key technological features and identifying future challenges for this goal.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures in the main text, and 29 pages supplementary materials with 16 figure

A reference-grade wild soybean genome

Wild relatives of crop plants are invaluable germplasm for genetic improvement. Here, Xie et al. report a reference-grade wild soybean genome and show that it can be used to identify structural variation and refine quantitative trait loci

A reference-grade wild soybean genome

Efficient crop improvement depends on the application of accurate genetic information contained in diverse germplasm resources. Here we report a reference-grade genome of wild soybean accession W05, with a final assembled genome size of 1013.2 Mb and a contig N50 of 3.3 Mb. The analytical power of the W05 genome is demonstrated by several examples. First, we identify an inversion at the locus determining seed coat color during domestication. Second, a translocation event between chromosomes 11 and 13 of some genotypes is shown to interfere with the assignment of QTLs. Third, we find a region containing copy number variations of the Kunitz trypsin inhibitor (KTI) genes. Such findings illustrate the power of this assembly in the analysis of large structural variations in soybean germplasm collections. The wild soybean genome assembly has wide applications in comparative genomic and evolutionary studies, as well as in crop breeding and improvement programs

Location and Level of Etk Expression in Neurons Are Associated with Varied Severity of Traumatic Brain Injury

Much recent research effort in traumatic brain injury (TBI) has been devoted to the discovery of a reliable biomarker correlating with severity of injury. Currently, no consensus has been reached regarding a representative marker for traumatic brain injury. In this study, we explored the potential of epithelial/endothelial tyrosine kinase (Etk) as a novel marker for TBI.TBI was induced in Sprague Dawley (SD) rats by controlled cortical impact. Brain tissue samples were analyzed by Western blot, Q-PCR, and immunofluorescence staining using various markers including glial fibrillary acidic protein, and epithelial/endothelial tyrosine kinase (Etk). Results show increased Etk expression with increased number and severity of impacts. Expression increased 2.36 to 7-fold relative to trauma severity. Significant upregulation of Etk appeared at 1 hour after injury. The expression level of Etk was inversely correlated with distance from injury site. Etk and trauma/inflammation related markers increased post-TBI, while other tyrosine kinases did not.The observed correlation between Etk level and the number of impacts, the severity of impact, and the time course after impact, as well as its inverse correlation with distance away from injury site, support the potential of Etk as a possible indicator of trauma severity