Selection for tetracycline-resistant Chlamydia suis in treated pigs

The aim of this study was to investigate Chlamydia suis in a pig farm with an outbreak of conjunctivitis and diarrhea. Eye swabs and pooled fecal samples were investigated for the presence of C. suis by real-time PCR and ArrayTube microarray. Samples positive for C. suis by ArrayTube microarray assay were further tested for the presence of the tet(C) resistance gene by PCR. In the first examination, C. suis was identified in 12 six-week-old pigs showing conjunctivitis. Of these, the tet(C) gene-coding region was amplified in one pooled fecal sample and one eye swab, respectively. After oral treatment with tetracycline, clinical symptoms disappeared. Subsequently, all eye swabs investigated from 10 healthy pigs were positive for C. suis and the tet(C) gene-coding region. The present study reports rapid selection for tetracycline-resistant C. suis after antibiotic treatment.     

Beitrag zur Untersuchung der Hamster (Cricetinae) in Bulgarien

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Assessment of genetic diversity in Galega officinalis L. using ISSR and SRAP markers

Goat’s rue is well known for its traditional medicinal importance. In the present study, inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) and sequence related amplified polymorphism (SRAP) molecular markers were employed for the first time to access the genetic diversity and relationships of 35 wild goat’s rue accessions obtained from Russia and part of Europe countries. A total of 100 bands were amplified by ten ISSR primers, of which 77(77%) were polymorphic, and 59 polymorphic bands (67.1%) were observed in 88 bands amplified by seven SRAP primers. Polymorphic information content (PIC?=?0.426), Shannon’s information index (I?=?0.432), and average expected heterozygosity (He?=?0.292) generated by ISSR primer were higher than that of SRAP analysis (PIC?=?0.422, I?=?0.380, and He?=?0.257,). The study indicated that ISSR were more effective than SRAP markers for assessing the degree of genetic variation of goat’s rue. UPGMA cluster analysis revealed inconsistencies in the clustering patterns, as the Mantel’s test between the dendrograms for ISSR and SRAP data indicated a poor fit for the ISSR and SRAP data types (r?=?0.358). Whereas the pattern of clustering of the genotypes remained more or less the same in SRAP and combined data of ISSR and SRAP. The results of principal coordinates analysis also supports their UPGMA clustering. These results have an important implication for goat’s rue germplasm characterization, improvement, and conservation.     

Antimicrobial and free radical scavenging activities of Teucrium montanum

The antimicrobial and free radical scavenging activities of petroleum ether, chloroform, ethyl acetate, n-butanol and water extracts of Teucrium montanum were investigated. Ethyl acetate, chloroform and n-butanol extracts expressed a wide range of inhibiting activity against both Gram (+) and Gram (-) bacteria. n-Butanol extract possessed potent DPPH free radical scavenging activity.     

Independent Component Analysis for Three-Way Data With an Application From Atmospheric Science

In this paper, a new approach to independent component analysis (ICA) for three-way data is considered. The rotational freedom of the three-mode component analysis (Tucker3) model is exploited to implement ICA in one mode of the data. The performance of the proposed approach is evaluated by means of numerical experiments. An illustration with real data from atmospheric science is presented, where the first mode is spatial location, the second is time and the third is a set of different meteorological variables representing geopotential heights at various vertical pressure levels. The results show that the three-mode decomposition finds spatial patterns of climate anomalies which can be interpreted in a meteorological sense and as such gives an insightful low-dimensional representation of the data.     

Microstructured platforms to study nanotube-mediated long-distance cell-to-cell connections

Recently, numerous innovative approaches have attempted to overcome the shortcomings of standard tissue culturing by providing custom-tailored substrates with superior features. In particular, tunable surface chemistry and topographical micro- and nanostructuring have been highlighted as potent effectors to control cell behavior. Apart from tissue engineering and the development of biosensors and diagnostic assays, the need for custom-tailored platform systems is accentuated by a variety of complex and poorly characterized biological processes. One of these processes is cell-to-cell communication mediated by tunneling nanotubes (TNTs), the reliable statistical analysis of which is consistently hampered by critical dependencies on various experimental factors, such as cell singularization, spacing, and alignment. Here, the authors developed a microstructured platform based on a combination of controlled surface chemistry along with topographic parameters, which permits the controllable attachment of different cell types to complementary patterns of cell attracting/nonattracting surface domains and-as a consequence-represents a standardized analysis tool to approach a wide range of biological questions. Apart from the technical complementation of mainstream applications, the developed surfaces could successfully be used to statistically determine TNT-based intercellular connection processes as they are occurring in standard as well as primary cell cultures.