Development of Single Nucleotide Polymorphism Markers for the Wheat Curl Mite Resistance Gene Cmc4

Wheat curl mite (Aceria tosichella Keifer) is an important wheat (Triticum aestivum L. em. Thell.) pest in many wheat-growing regions worldwide. Mite feeding damage not only directly affects wheat yield, but A. tosichella also transmits Wheat streak mosaic virus (WSMV). Wheat resistance to A. tosichella, therefore, helps control WSMV. OK05312 (PI 670019) is an advanced breeding line released from Oklahoma that shows a high level of A. tosichella resistance. To map the gene(s) conditioning wheat resistance to A. tosichella in OK05312, a genetic linkage map was constructed using single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers derived from genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) and a population of 186 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) from the cross ‘Jerry’ (PI 632433)/OK05312. Seedlings of both parents and the RIL population were infested by A. tosichella Biotype 1 in greenhouse experiments. One major quantitative trait locus was identified on the short arm of chromosome 6D, which corresponds to the previously reported gene Cmc4 for A. tosichella resistance. This gene explained up to 71% of the phenotypic variation and was delimited in a 1.7-Mb (?3.3-cM) region by SNPs 370SNP7523 and 370SNP1639. We successfully converted 12 GBS-SNPs into Kompetitive allele specific polymerase chain reaction (KASP) markers. Two of them tightly linked to Cmc4 were validated to be highly diagnostic in a US winter wheat population and can be used for marker-assisted breeding for incorporation of Cmc4 into new wheat cultivars

Dynamic Transcript Profiling of Candida Albicans Infection in Zebrafish: a Pathogen-Host Interaction Study

Candida albicans is responsible for a number of life-threatening infections and causes considerable morbidity and mortality in immunocompromised patients. Previous studies of C. albicans pathogenesis have suggested several steps must occur before virulent infection, including early adhesion, invasion, and late tissue damage. However, the mechanism that triggers C. albicans transformation from yeast to hyphae form during infection has yet to be fully elucidated. This study used a systems biology approach to investigate C. albicans infection in zebrafish. The surviving fish were sampled at different post-infection time points to obtain time-lapsed, genome-wide transcriptomic data from both organisms, which were accompanied with in sync histological analyses. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to analyze the dynamic gene expression profiles of significant variations in both C. albicans and zebrafish. The results categorized C. albicans infection into three progressing phases: adhesion, invasion, and damage. Such findings were highly supported by the corresponding histological analysis. Furthermore, the dynamic interspecies transcript profiling revealed that C. albicans activated its filamentous formation during invasion and the iron scavenging functions during the damage phases, whereas zebrafish ceased its iron homeostasis function following massive hemorrhage during the later stages of infection. This was followed by massive hemorrhaging toward the end stage of infection. Most of the immune related genes were expressed as the infection progressed from invasion to the damage phase. Such global, inter-species evidence of virulence-immune and iron competition dynamics during C. albicans infection could be crucial in understanding control fungal pathogenesis

Comparative outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 primary and reinfection in older adult patients

BackgroundThe outcomes of older adult people acquiring SARS-CoV-2 reinfection was unclear. This study aimed to compare the outcomes of older adult patients with COVID-19 reinfection and those with primary infection.MethodsThis retrospective cohort study used electronic medical records from the TriNetX Research Network. Older adult patients (aged ≥65 years) with COVID-19 between January 1, 2022, and December 31, 2022, were included in the study. The patients were subsequently categorized into reinfection or primary infection groups, according to whether they manifested two distinct COVID-19 episodes with an intervening period of more than 90 days. Propensity score matching was performed for covariate adjustment between the reinfection and primary infection groups. The primary outcome was a composite outcome, including emergency department visits, hospitalization, intensive care unit admission, mechanical ventilation use, and mortality, following primary infection and reinfection.ResultsAfter matching, 31,899 patients were identified in both the reinfection and primary infection groups. The risk of primary composite outcomes was 7.15% (n = 2,281) in the reinfection group and 7.53% (n = 2,403) in the primary infection group. No significant difference in the primary outcome was observed between groups (HR, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.91 to 1.02, p = 0.17). In addition, there was no significant differences between the reinfection and primary infection groups in terms of emergency department visit (HR, 1.03; 95% CI, 0.95 to 1.11, p = 0.49), all-cause hospitalization (HR, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.86 to 1.02, p = 0.14), intensive care unit admission (HR, 0.92; 95% CI, 0.67 to 1.28, p = 0.62), mechanical ventilation use (HR,1.35 95% CI, 0.69 to 2.64 p = 0.38), and all-cause mortality (HR, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.74 to 1.20, p = 0.62).ConclusionThere were no significant differences in clinical outcomes between older adult patients with COVID-19 reinfection and those with primary infection