Evaluation of synbiotics as gut health improvement agents against Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli isolated from the pig

Colibacillosis is one of the major health problems in young piglets resulting in poor health and death caused by Escherichia coli producing F18 pili and Shiga toxin 2e. It is pivotal to reduce colibacillosis in weaned piglets to enhance production performance. In this study, we evaluated synbiotics as the gut health improvement agents in the mouse model challenged with Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) isolated from piglets. Prebiotic lactulose was formulated with each 5.0 × 106 CFU/mL of Pediococcus acidilactici GB-U15, Lactobacillus plantarum GB-U17, and Lactobacillus plantarum GB 1-3 to produce 3 combinations of synbiotics. A total of 40 three weeks old BALB/c mice were randomly assigned to 4 groups (n = 10): a control group and 3 synbiotics treated groups. Each treatment groups were daily administrated with 5.0 × 106 CFU/mL of one synbiotics for the first week, and every 3 days during the second week. All the mice were challenged with 8.0 × 108 CFU/mL of STEC 5 days after animals began to receive synbiotics. Mice treated with synbiotics based on Pediococcus acidilactici GB-U15 and Lactobacillus plantarum GB-U17 significantly improved daily weight gain compared to mice in other groups. While mice treated with GB-U15 showed better fecal index, no significant differences were observed among groups. Gross lesion and histopathological evaluations showed that mice treated with GB-U15 moderately improved recovery from STEC infection. In conclusion, our results suggest that the synbiotics formulated with lactulose and Pediococcus acidilactici GB-U15 have potential benefits to prevent and improve colibacillosis in weaned piglets

Maximizing spectral radius of unoriented Laplacian matrix over bicyclic graphs of a given order

[[abstract]]For every integer n≥4, it is proved that there is a unique graph of order n which maximizes the spectral radius of the unoriented Laplacian matrix over all bicyclic graphs of order n, namely, the graph obtained from the cycle C 4 by first adding a chord and then attaching n − 4 pendant edges to one end of the chord.[[notice]]補正完畢[[journaltype]]國外[[incitationindex]]SC

The dynamics of the piglet gut microbiome during the weaning transition in association with health and nutrition

Abstract Background Understanding the composition of the microbial community and its functional capacity during weaning is important for pig production as bacteria play important roles in the pig’s health and growth performance. However, limited information is available regarding the composition and function of the gut microbiome of piglets in early-life. Therefore, we performed 16S rRNA gene and whole metagenome shotgun sequencing of DNA from fecal samples from healthy piglets during weaning to measure microbiome shifts, and to identify the potential contribution of the early-life microbiota in shaping piglet health with a focus on microbial stress responses, carbohydrate and amino acid metabolism. Results The analysis of 16S rRNA genes and whole metagenome shotgun sequencing revealed significant compositional and functional differences between the fecal microbiome in nursing and weaned piglets. The fecal microbiome of the nursing piglets showed higher relative abundance of bacteria in the genus Bacteroides with abundant gene families related to the utilization of lactose and galactose. Prevotella and Lactobacillus were enriched in weaned piglets with an enrichment for the gene families associated with carbohydrate and amino acid metabolism. In addition, an analysis of the functional capacity of the fecal microbiome showed higher abundances of genes associated with heat shock and oxidative stress in the metagenome of weaned piglets compared to nursing piglets. Conclusions Overall, our data show that microbial shifts and changes in functional capacities of the piglet fecal microbiome resulted in potential reductions in the effects of stress, including dietary changes that occur during weaning. These results provide us with new insights into the piglet gut microbiome that contributes to the growth of the animal

Proteomic Analysis of the Aqueous Humor in Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) Patients

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) can lead to irreversible central vision loss in the elderly. Although large number of growth factor pathways, including the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), has been implicated in the pathogenesis of AMD, no study has directly assessed the whole proteomic composition in the aqueous humor (AH) among AMD patients. The AH contains proteins secreted from the anterior segment tissue, and these proteins may play an important role in the pathogenesis of AMD. Thus, comparisons between the AH proteomic profiles of AMD patients and non-AMD controls may lead to the verification of novel pathogenic proteins useful as potential clinical biomarkers. In this study, we used discovery-based proteomics and Multiple Reaction Monitoring Mass Spectrometry (MRM-MS) to analyze AH from AMD patients and AH from controls who underwent cataract surgery. A total of 154 proteins with at least two unique peptides were identified in the AH. Of these 154 proteins identified by discovery-based proteomics, 10 AH proteins were novel identifications. The protein composition in the AH was different between AMD patients and non-AMD controls. Subsequently, a systematic MRM-MS assay was performed in seven highly abundant differentially expressed proteins from these groups. Differential expression of three proteins was observed in the AH of AMD patients compared with that of cataract controls (<i>p</i> < 0.0312). Elucidation of the aqueous proteome will establish a foundation for protein function analysis and identify differentially expressed markers associated with AMD. This study demonstrates that integrated proteomic technologies can yield novel biomarkers to detect exudative AMD

Proteomic Analysis of the Aqueous Humor in Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) Patients

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) can lead to irreversible central vision loss in the elderly. Although large number of growth factor pathways, including the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), has been implicated in the pathogenesis of AMD, no study has directly assessed the whole proteomic composition in the aqueous humor (AH) among AMD patients. The AH contains proteins secreted from the anterior segment tissue, and these proteins may play an important role in the pathogenesis of AMD. Thus, comparisons between the AH proteomic profiles of AMD patients and non-AMD controls may lead to the verification of novel pathogenic proteins useful as potential clinical biomarkers. In this study, we used discovery-based proteomics and Multiple Reaction Monitoring Mass Spectrometry (MRM-MS) to analyze AH from AMD patients and AH from controls who underwent cataract surgery. A total of 154 proteins with at least two unique peptides were identified in the AH. Of these 154 proteins identified by discovery-based proteomics, 10 AH proteins were novel identifications. The protein composition in the AH was different between AMD patients and non-AMD controls. Subsequently, a systematic MRM-MS assay was performed in seven highly abundant differentially expressed proteins from these groups. Differential expression of three proteins was observed in the AH of AMD patients compared with that of cataract controls (<i>p</i> < 0.0312). Elucidation of the aqueous proteome will establish a foundation for protein function analysis and identify differentially expressed markers associated with AMD. This study demonstrates that integrated proteomic technologies can yield novel biomarkers to detect exudative AMD

Additional file 2: of The dynamics of the piglet gut microbiome during the weaning transition in association with health and nutrition

Figure S1. Extended error bar plot identifying the significantly different taxa between nursing and weaned piglets at the phylum (a), family (b) and genus (c) levels. Corrected P values are shown at right. The differences in the microbial community structure were measured using a two-sided Welch’s t-test, and P < 0.05 was considered significant. Figure S2. Comparison of the taxonomic profiles obtained using 16S rRNA gene and whole metagenome sequencing between nursing and weaned piglets. Stacked bar plots show the relative abundance of bacteria at the a phylum, b family and c genus levels. Figure S3. Heatmap of relative abundance of SEED level 1 subsystems based on whole metagenome sequencing data. The e-value cutoff for metagenomics sequence matches to the SEED subsystem database was 1 × 10− 5 with a minimum alignment length of 15 amino acids. The two-way hierarchical cluster analysis was performed using unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) method. The side colors in the heatmap depicts the clustering of the subsystems based on the relative abundance. The yellow cluster indicate the SEED Subsystem with relative abundance above 7% while the green cluster represent the SEED Subsystem with relative abundance below 5%. Figure S4. Differences in the relative abundance of level 1SEED subsystems that were mapped to “Carbohydrates”, “Amino Acids and Derivatives”, “Stress Response” and “Virulence, Disease and Defense”. Corrected P-values are calculated using the Benjamini-Hochberg false discovery rate approach (P < 0.05). Figure S5. Comparison functional categories assigned to a “Virulence, Disease and Defense” SEED subsystem level 2 and b “Resistance to Antibiotics” SEED subsystem level 3 between nursing and weaned piglets based on whole metagenome shotgun sequences analyzed using MG-RAST. The error bars show the calculated standard deviation of four replicates, and the [P < 0.001], [P < 0.01] and [P < 0.05] were indicated as [***], [**] and [*], respectively. (PPTX 911 kb