Construct Fluorescent Solid Lipid Nanoparticles from Bacterial Outer Membrane Vesicles to Study their Properties and Potential Applications as In Vivo and Invitro Imaging Agents

In this study, the new solid lipid nanoparticles were created by combining fluorescent dye, fatty acid, lipid, and bacterial outer membranes. The synthesised particles were roughly 95-100 nm in size. Vero cells cultivated with these nanoparticles showed no cytotoxicity in 5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. In the cell uptake studies, the vero cell line was employed. Cell lines absorbed fluorescent solid lipid nanoparticles (FSL NPs) better, according to the findings. The confocal microscopy results revealed a significant accumulation of FSL NPs in the cytoplasm over time. The results of small animal imaging employing BALB/c mice revealed that the nanoparticles generated provided high contrast signals. Overall, the OMVs-based FSL NPs system offers a unique imaging tool for studying intracellular interactions as well as a viable tool for drug delivery.

Is AMR in Dairy Products a Threat to Human Health? An Updated Review on the Origin, Prevention, Treatment, and Economic Impacts of Subclinical Mastitis

Background

Bovine mastitis is the most frequent and costly illness impacting dairy herds worldwide. The presence of subclinical mastitis in dairy cows has an impact on the decreased output of milk and milk quality, culling of affected cows, mortality rate, as well as mastitis-related treatment expenses, generating significant financial loss to the dairy industry. The pathogenic bacteria invade through the mammary gland, which then multiply in the milk-producing tissues causing infection, and the presence of pathogenic bacteria in milk is concerning, jeopardizes human health, and also has public health consequences. Intervention to promote herd health is essential to protect public health and the economy.

Results

This review attempts to provide an overview of subclinical mastitis, including mastitis in different species, the effect of mastitis on human health and its pathogenic mechanism, the prevalence and incidence of subclinical mastitis, and current preventive, diagnostic, and treatment methods for subclinical mastitis. It also elaborates on the management practices that should be followed by the farms to improve herd immunity and health.

Conclusion

This review brings the importance of the threat of antimicrobial resistance organisms to the dairy industry. Furthermore, this review gives a glimpse of the economic consequences faced by the farmers and a futuristic mastitis market analysis in the dairy industry.

One Health activities to reinforce intersectoral coordination at local levels in India

India's dense human and animal populations, agricultural economy, changing environment, and social dynamics support conditions for emergence/re-emergence of zoonotic diseases that necessitate a One Health (OH) approach for control. In addition to OH national level frameworks, effective OH driven strategies that promote local intersectoral coordination and collaboration are needed to truly address zoonotic diseases in India. We conducted a literature review to assess the landscape of OH activities at local levels in India that featured intersectoral coordination and collaboration and supplemented it with our own experience conducting OH related activities with local partners. We identified key themes and examples in local OH activities. Our landscape assessment demonstrated that intersectoral collaboration primarily occurs through specific research activities and during outbreaks, however, there is limited formal coordination among veterinary, medical, and environmental professionals on the day-to-day prevention and detection of zoonotic diseases at district/sub-district levels in India. Examples of local OH driven intersectoral coordination include the essential role of veterinarians in COVID-19 diagnostics, testing of human samples in veterinary labs for Brucella and leptospirosis in Punjab and Tamil Nadu, respectively, and implementation of OH education targeted to school children and farmers in rural communities. There is an opportunity to strengthen local intersectoral coordination between animal, human and environmental health sectors by building on these activities and formalizing the existing collaborative networks. As India moves forward with broad OH initiatives, OH networks and experience at the local level from previous or ongoing activities can support implementation from the ground up.

Expression profiling of candidate embryotrophic genes of buffalo oviduct during different stages of oestrous cycle

The aim of the present study was to identify the gene expression profile of three candidate genes namely heat shock protein 70, oviductal glycoprotein and osteopontin in buffalo oviduct during different stages of the oestrous cycle. Slaughter house derived buffalo oviducts were categorized as belonging to early, mid and late phase of the oestrous cycle based on the morphological appearance of CL and progesterone concentration. The relative abundance of each of the candidate gene transcript was quantified by real time RT-PCR. Transcripts of all the three candidate genes were found to be expressed in OEC throughout the oestrous cycle. The results of the present study demonstrate that gene expression in the buffalo oviduct is clearly regulated during the oestrous cycle, as these candidate genes play a crucial role in several reproductive processes. It was found that Hsp 70 gene was significantly upregulated in OEC belonging to the early and late phases when compared to mid phases of the cycle. The expression of OVGP mRNA was found to be maximum during the early phase and it remained low during the mid and late phases while expression of OPN mRNA was maximum during the early phase and declined sequentially during the mid and late phase of oestrus cycle. 

Defined Antigen Skin Test for Bovine Tuberculosis Retains Specificity on Revaccination With Bacillus Calmette–Guérin

The Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) vaccination provides partial protection against, and reduces severity of pathological lesions associated with bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in cattle. Accumulating evidence also suggests that revaccination with BCG may be needed to enhance the duration of immune protection. Since BCG vaccine cross-reacts with traditional tuberculin-based diagnostic tests, a peptide-based defined antigen skin test (DST) comprising of ESAT-6, CFP-10, and Rv3615c to detect the infected among the BCG-vaccinated animals (DIVA) was recently described. The DST reliably identifies bTB-infected animals in experimental challenge models and in natural infection settings, and differentiated these from animals immunized with a single dose of BCG in both skin tests and interferon-gamma release assay (IGRA). The current investigation sought to assess the diagnostic specificity of DST in calves (Bos taurus ssp. taurus × B. t. ssp. indicus; n = 15) revaccinated with BCG 6 months after primary immunization. The results show that none of the 15 BCG-revaccinated calves exhibited a delayed hypersensitivity response when skin tested with DST 61 days post-revaccination, suggesting 100% diagnostic specificity (one-tailed lower 95% CI: 82). In contrast, 8 of 15 (diagnostic specificity = 47%; 95% CI: 21, 73) BCG-revaccinated calves were positive per the single cervical tuberculin (SCT) test using bovine tuberculin. Together, these results show that the DST retains its specificity even after revaccination with BCG and confirms the potential for implementation of BCG-based interventions in settings where test-and-slaughter are not economically or culturally feasible.

A Distinct Phylogenetic Cluster of Indian Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Isolates

BACKGROUND

From an isolated epidemic, coronavirus disease 2019 has now emerged as a global pandemic. The availability of genomes in the public domain after the epidemic provides a unique opportunity to understand the evolution and spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus across the globe.

METHODS

We performed whole-genome sequencing of 303 Indian isolates, and we analyzed them in the context of publicly available data from India.

RESULTS

We describe a distinct phylogenetic cluster (Clade I/A3i) of SARS-CoV-2 genomes from India, which encompasses 22% of all genomes deposited in the public domain from India. Globally, approximately 2% of genomes, which to date could not be mapped to any distinct known cluster, fall within this clade.

CONCLUSIONS

The cluster is characterized by a core set of 4 genetic variants and has a nucleotide substitution rate of 1.1 × 10-3 variants per site per year, which is lower than the prevalent A2a cluster. Epidemiological assessments suggest that the common ancestor emerged at the end of January 2020 and possibly resulted in an outbreak followed by countrywide spread. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive study characterizing this cluster of SARS-CoV-2 in India.

A Defined Antigen Skin Test That Enables Implementation of BCG Vaccination for Control of Bovine Tuberculosis: Proof of Concept

In most low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), bovine tuberculosis (bTB) remains endemic due to the absence of control programs. This is because successful bTB control and eradication programs have relied on test-and-slaughter strategies that are socioeconomically unfeasible in LMICs. While Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) vaccine-induced protection for cattle has long been documented in experimental and field trials, its use in control programs has been precluded by the inability to differentiate BCG-vaccinated from naturally infected animals using the OIE-prescribed purified protein derivative (PPD)-based tuberculin skin tests. In the current study, the diagnostic specificity and capability for differentiating infected from vaccinated animals (DIVA) of a novel defined antigen skin test (DST) in BCG-vaccinated (Bos taurus ssp. taurus x B. t. ssp. indicus) calves were compared with the performance of traditional PPD-tuberculin in both the skin test and in vitro interferon-gamma release assay (IGRA). The IFN-γ production from whole blood cells stimulated with both PPDs increased significantly from the 0 week baseline levels, while DST induced no measurable IFN-γ production in BCG-vaccinated calves. None of the 15 BCG-vaccinated calves were reactive with the DST skin test (100% specificity; one-tailed lower 95% CI: 82). In contrast, 10 of 15 BCG-vaccinated calves were classified as reactors with the PPD-based single intradermal test (SIT) (specificity in vaccinated animals = 33%; 95% CI: 12, 62). Taken together, the results provide strong evidence that the DST is highly specific and enables DIVA capability in both skin and IGRA assay format, thereby enabling the implementation of BCG vaccine-based bTB control, particularly in settings where test and slaughter remain unfeasible.

Fabrication of Progesterone-Loaded Nanofibers for the Drug Delivery Applications in Bovine

Progesterone is a potent drug for synchronization of the estrus and ovulation cycles in bovine. At present, the estrus cycle of bovine is controlled by the insertion of progesterone-embedded silicone bands. The disadvantage of nondegradable polymer inserts is to require for disposal of these bands after their use. The study currently focuses on preparation of biodegradable progesterone-incorporated nanofiber for estrus synchronization. Three different concentrations (1.2, 1.9, and 2.5 g) of progesterone-impregnated nanofibers were fabricated using electrospinning. The spun membrane were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry, thermogravimetric analysis, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Uniform surface morphology, narrow size distribution, and interaction between progesterone and zein were confirmed by SEM. FTIR spectroscopy indicated miscibility and interaction between zein and progesterone. X-ray analysis indicated that the size of zein crystallites increased with progesterone content in nanofibers. Significant differences in thermal behavior of progesterone-impregnated nanofiber were observed by DSC. Cell viability studies of progesterone-loaded nanofiber were examined using MTT assay. In vitro release experiment is to identify the suitable progesterone concentration for estrus synchronization. This study confirms that progesterone-impregnated nanofibers are an ideal vehicle for progesterone delivery for estrus synchronization of bovines.

Transcriptome profiling reveals higher vertebrate orthologous of intra-cytoplasmic pattern recognition receptors in grey bamboo shark

From an immunologist perspective, sharks are an important group of jawed cartilaginous fishes and survey of the public database revealed a great gap in availability of large-scale sequence data for the group of Chondrichthyans the elasmobranchs. In an attempt to bridge this deficit we generated the transcriptome from the spleen and kidney tissues (a total of 1,606,172 transcripts) of the shark, Chiloscyllium griseum using the Illumina HiSeq2000 platform. With a cut off of > = 300 bp and an expression value of >1RPKM we used 43,385 transcripts for BLASTX analysis which revealed 17,548 transcripts matching to the NCBI nr database with an E-value of < = 10(-5) and similarity score of 40%. The longest transcript was 16,974 bases with matched to HECT domain containing E3 ubiqutin protein ligase. MEGAN4 annotation pipeline revealed immune and signalling pathways including cell adhesion molecules, cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, T-cell receptor signalling pathway and chemokine signaling pathway to be highly expressed in spleen, while different metabolism pathways such as amino acid metabolism, carbohydrate metabolism, lipid metabolism and xenobiotic biodegradation were highly expressed in kidney. Few of the candidate genes were selected to analyze their expression levels in various tissues by real-time PCR and also localization of a receptor by in-situ PCR to validate the prediction. We also predicted the domains structures of some of the identified pattern recognition receptors, their phylogenetic relationship with lower and higher vertebrates and the complete downstream signaling mediators of classical dsRNA signaling pathway. The generated transcriptome will be a valuable resource to further genetic and genomic research in elasmobranchs.