Feline immunodeficiency virus, feline leukaemia virus, Toxoplasma gondii, and intestinal parasitic infections in Taiwanese cats

A population consisting of 70 breeder cats, 43 clinical cases, and 16 feral cats was examined for the presence of Toxoplasma gondii, feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), and feline leukaemia virus (FeLV). No oocysts of T. gondii were observed in 96 faecal samples; faecal samples were not available from the feral cats. Other intestinal parasites identified included Isospora felis (three cats), Isospora rivolta (five), Dipylidium canium (two), Toxocara cati (four), Toxascaris leonina (one), and Ancylostoma sp. (two). Using a kinetics-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay on 117 sera including all the feral cats, nine had antibody to T. gondii antigen, three for antigens to FIV, and seven to the p27 antigen of FeLV. Of the nine cats with antibody to T. gondii, only one was also infected with FIV.     

Recent advances in laboratory models for evaluation of helminth chemotherapy

Extensive research on nematodes of veterinary importance has resulted in new tests based on incubation of parasitic nematodes in culture media, with a variety of detection systems including visual observation, inhibition of aggregation, reduced secretion of acetylcholinesterase and electronic motility measurements. There has been a proliferation of tests to detect benzimidazole resistant nematodes including egg embryonation, egg hatch, larval motility, differences in esterases, and tubulin binding by labelled benzimidazoles. A simple larval development test, which detects resistance to all types of anthelmintics, is likely to become the preferred test for evaluation of resistance in nematodes of grazing animals. By contrast the relative unimportance of trematodes and cestodes from a commercial point of view has resulted in few recent developments in models for evaluating chemotherapy. But the emergence of drug resistant strains of both schistosomes and liver fluke indicates the need for simple tests to detect resistance.     

A biotyping scheme for Salmonella livingstone

Salmonella livingstone is one of the more common salmonella serotypes isolated in the United Kingdom. The characterization of 70 different isolates of S. livingstone using biochemical tests and plasmid profile analysis is described. The isolates could be divided into four groups by their ability to grow in d-tartrate, l-tartrate and Stern's glycerol. Further subdivision was achieved by the use of plasmid profile analysis; 24 of the isolates possessed light plasmids (less than 9.5 MD) and four possessed heavy plasmids (greater than 30 MD). The combination of biotyping and plasmid profile analysis can be used as the basis of a scheme to 'fingerprint' S. livingstone for epidemiological studies.     

Observations on the treatment of necrobacillosis in wallabies

Clinical experience of 73 cases of necrobacillosis in red-necked wallabies (Macropus rufogriseus) over a 6-year period is reviewed. Diagnostic methods and the medical and surgical treatment options are detailed. It is suggested that survival curves are necessary to assess the outcome of treatment.     

The significance of small vs large intestinal digestion of cereal grain and oilseed protein in the equine

Mature ponies fitted with permanent ileal cannulas were used in two 3×3 Latin square experiments to quantify prececal, postileal and total tract digestion of N. In trial 1, corn, oats and sorghum were each fed with coastal Bermuda grass hay in 75:25 ratios. Apparent prececal digestibilities were similar (P>.05) and averaged 46.6%. By-difference procedures were employed to calculate digestibility of the cereal grain N only and apparent prececal N digestibility averaged 57.1%. In trial 2, a basal corn and hay diet was supplemented with cottonseed meal and soybean meal. Apparent total tract N digestibilities were similar (P>.05) across treatments, and prececal digestibility averaged 45.6%. By-difference calculations were used to determine digestibility of SBM and CSM N alone. Apparent prececal digestibility of SBM was 52.5% and was lower (P<.05) than 81.2% for CSM. It is possible that inadequate or excessive heat treatment of SBM affected enzymatic digestion. True digestibility of total rations fed in trial 2 was estimated by linear regression of nitrogen digested on nitrogen intake or N presented to the large intestine. True N digestibility of diets containing SBM and CSM was 54.7% and 69.4%, respectively.     

Land Use and Soil Organic Carbon in China’s Village Landscapes

Village landscapes, which integrate small-scale agriculture with housing, forestry, and a host of other land use practices, cover more than 2 million square kilometers across China. Village lands tend to be managed at very fine spatial scales (≤ 30 m), with managers both adapting their practices to existing variation in soils and terrain (e.g., fertile plains vs. infertile slopes) and also altering soil fertility and even terrain by terracing, irrigation, fertilizing, and other land use practices. Relationships between fine-scale land management patterns and soil organic carbon (SOC) in the top 30 cm of village soils were studied by sampling soils within fine-scale landscape features using a regionally weighted landscape sampling design across five environmentally distinct sites in China. SOC stocks across China’s village regions (5 Pg C in the top 30 cm of 2 × 10 6 km 2 ) represent roughly 4% of the total SOC stocks in global croplands. Although macroclimate varied from temperate to tropical in this study, SOC density did not vary significantly with climate, though it was negatively correlated with regional mean elevation. The highest SOC densities within landscapes were found in agricultural lands, especially paddy, the lowest SOC densities were found in nonproductive lands, and forest lands tended toward moderate SOC densities. Due to the high SOC densities of agricultural lands and their predominance in village landscapes, most village SOC was found in agricultural land, except in the tropical hilly region, where forestry accounted for about 45% of the SOC stocks. A surprisingly large portion of village SOC was associated with built structures and with the disturbed lands surrounding these structures, ranging from 18% in the North China Plain to about 9% in the tropical hilly region. These results confirmed that local land use practices, combined with local and regional variation in terrain, were associated with most of the SOC variation within and across China’s village landscapes and may be an important cause of regional variation in SOC.     

Comparative proteomic analysis of mushroom cell wall proteins among the different developmental stages of Pleurotus tuber-regium

Cell wall proteins (CWPs) play a vital role in the development of the different morphological stages including mycelium, fruiting body, and sclerotium in mushrooms which are important human food sources. Using fractionation by detergents and reducing agents, mushroom cell wall fractions from the different developmental stages of Pleurotus tuber-regium (PTR) were prepared. Using one-dimensional gel electrophoresis coupled with LC-MS, there were 103, 91, and 48 noncovalently linked CWPs identified in the cell wall fractions of the PTR mycelium, fruiting body, and sclerotium, respectively. Comparing the CWPs in these cell wall fractions, 19 of them were in common, among which 17 belonged to the functional categories of translation, ribosomal structure, and biogenesis. This is the first study to provide important biochemical insights into the different developmental stages of PTR mediated by CWPs, and the identified CWPs helped to explain the morphological changes of PTR mushrooms during cultivation.     

Selective silencing of foreign DNA with low GC content by the H-NS protein in Salmonella

Horizontal gene transfer plays a major role in microbial evolution. However, newly acquired sequences can decrease fitness unless integrated into preexisting regulatory networks. We found that the histone-like nucleoid structuring protein (H-NS) selectively silences horizontally acquired genes by targeting sequences with GC content lower than the resident genome. Mutations in hns are lethal in Salmonella unless accompanied by compensatory mutations in other regulatory loci. Thus, H-NS provides a previously unrecognized mechanism of bacterial defense against foreign DNA, enabling the acquisition of DNA from exogenous sources while avoiding detrimental consequences from unregulated expression of newly acquired genes. Characteristic GC/AT ratios of bacterial genomes may facilitate discrimination between a cell's own DNA and foreign DNA.     

Hyperspectral species mapping for automatic weed control in tomato under thermal environmental stress

This work studied the impacts of variations in environmental temperature on hyperspectral imaging features in the visible and near infrared regions for robust species identification for weed mapping in tomato production. Six major Californian processing tomato cultivars, black nightshade (Solanum nigrum L.) and redroot pigweed (Amaranthus retroflexus L.) were grown under a variety of diurnal temperature ranges simulating conditions common in the Californian springtime planting period and one additional treatment simulating greenhouse growing conditions. The principal change in canopy reflectance with varying temperature occurred in the 480-670 and 720-810 nm regions. The overall classification rate ranged from 62.5% to 91.6% when classifiers trained under single temperatures were applied to plants grown at different temperatures. Eliminating the 480-670 nm region from the classifier’s feature set mitigated the temperature effect by stabilizing the total crop vs. weed classification rate at 86.4% over the temperature ranges. A site-specific recalibration method was also successful in alleviating the bias created by calibrating the models on the extreme temperatures and increased the classification accuracy to 90.3%. A global calibration method, incorporating all four temperature conditions in the classifier feature space, provided the best average total classification accuracy of 92.2% out of the methods studied, and was fairly robust to the varying diurnal temperature conditions.     

Gibberellin-Induced Inhibition of Bud Development in Some Species of Prunus

Development of both floral and vegetative buds was inhibited by application of gibberellin to branches of Prunus species. The development of the lateral meristem was blocked, in general, through inhibition of mitosis, while, concurrently, the growth of certain other plant organs was stimulated in some cases. That higher dosages were required to block vegetattive than floral bud growth suggests that gibberellin also exerts the more specific effect of inhibiting floral initiation.