Guidelines for euthanasia of domestic animals by firearms

All animals that are to be killed, whether for food, for humane reasons, or because they are homeless, must receive a quick and painless death. In some smaller communities, veterinary or humane society expertise may not be readily available to humanely kill stray and unwanted animals. An alternative that provides for a humane death for the animal is by shooting. The following guidelines are intended to assist persons who must perform this usually distasteful task; they contain recommended techniques that will help to ensure that any animals killed by shooting will die in a humane way.     

Development and evaluation of an indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for detection of foot-and-mouth disease virus nonstructural protein antibody using a chemically synthesized 2B peptide as antigen.

Forty peptides were synthesized corresponding to hydrophilic clusters of amino acids within the sequences of foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) nonstructural proteins (NSP). Six peptides were studied in more detail and the most promising, a 2B peptide, was evaluated in enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) using sera from naive, vaccinated, and vaccinated-and-challenged cattle as well as bovine sera from field outbreaks. The performance of the new NSP peptide ELISA was compared to that of 4 commercial NSP ELISA kits. Antibody to 2B was detectable from the end of the first week to the second week after infection in most of the nonvaccinated animals and by the second to third week in vaccinated-and-challenged animals. The sensitivity of the 2B peptide ELISA was comparable to the 3ABC Ceditest (Ceditest FMDV-NS, Cedi Diagnostics B.V.; Chung et al., 2002). With some modification and further validation, this 2B test could be useful as a screening or conformational NSP test in postvaccination surveillance for FMD.     

Tree water use and rainfall partitioning in a mature poplar-pasture system

Traditionally, poplars (Populus) have been planted to control erosion on New Zealand's hill-slopes, because of their capacity to dry out and bind together the soil, by reducing effective rainfall and increasing evapotranspiration and soil strength. However, the effect of widely spaced poplars on the partitioning of soil water and rainfall has not been reported. This study determined rainfall partitioning for 18 mid-spring days in a mature P. deltoides (Bart. ex Marsh, Clone I78)-pasture association (37 stems per hectare, unevenly spaced at 16.4 +/- 0.4 m) and compared it with a traditional open pasture system in grazed areas of a hill environment. Tree transpiration was measured by the heat pulse technique. A time-driven mathematical model was used to set a zero offset, adjust anomalous values and describe simultaneous sap velocity time courses of trees. The model showed that daylight sap flow velocities can be represented with a nonlinear Beta function (R(2) > 0.98), and differences in the parameters representing the initiation, duration and conformation of the sap velocity can be tested statistically to discern tree transpiration differences during the day. Evapotranspiration was greater for the poplar-pasture association than for the open pasture (2.7-3.0 versus 2.2 mm day(-1)). The tree canopy alone contributed 0.92 mm day(-1) as transpiration and 1.37 mm day(-1) as interception, whereas evapotranspiration of the pasture understory was only 0.4-0.6 mm day(-1). Despite the higher water use of the poplar-pasture association, soil water in the 0-300 mm soil stratum was higher than, or similar to, that of the open pasture. Tree shading decreased evapotranspiration and pasture accumulation under the trees.     

On the genetic status of maternals induced by pollination of Brassica oleracea L. with Brassica campestris L.

Summary Plants derived by bud selfing maternals, obtained after pollinating B. oleracea L. with B. campestris L., have been shown to be segregating for their S alleles and in one instance for a major gene determining the presence of hairs on the first true foliage leaf. This agrees with the evidence of Tokumasu (1965) and Haruta (1970, person. comm.) in demonstrating that the original maternals were not completely homozygous. The evidence would appear to favour diploid parthenogenesis as the mode of origin of these maternals and the induction of maternals by interspecific pollinations within the Brassica genus does not appear to offer a viable alternative to inbreeding for the synthesis of pure lines for F₁ or double cross hybrid production.     

Multilineage potential of adult human mesenchymal stem cells

Human mesenchymal stem cells are thought to be multipotent cells, which are present in adult marrow, that can replicate as undifferentiated cells and that have the potential to differentiate to lineages of mesenchymal tissues, including bone, cartilage, fat, tendon, muscle, and marrow stroma. Cells that have the characteristics of human mesenchymal stem cells were isolated from marrow aspirates of volunteer donors. These cells displayed a stable phenotype and remained as a monolayer in vitro. These adult stem cells could be induced to differentiate exclusively into the adipocytic, chondrocytic, or osteocytic lineages. Individual stem cells were identified that, when expanded to colonies, retained their multilineage potential.     

Impaired prion replication in spleens of mice lacking functional follicular dendritic cells

In scrapie-infected mice, prions are found associated with splenic but not circulating B and T lymphocytes and in the stroma, which contains follicular dendritic cells (FDCs). Formation and maintenance of mature FDCs require the presence of B cells expressing membrane-bound lymphotoxin-alpha/beta. Treatment of mice with soluble lymphotoxin-beta receptor results in the disappearance of mature FDCs from the spleen. We show that this treatment abolishes splenic prion accumulation and retards neuroinvasion after intraperitoneal scrapie inoculation. These data provide evidence that FDCs are the principal sites for prion replication in the spleen.