Immunogenicity of a novel inactivated canine adenovirus type 2 variant vaccine for dogs.

Purpose: The immunogenicity of vaccines containing the canine adenovirus (CAdV) type 2 (CAdV-2) variant has not yet been reported. We prepared a novel inactivated CAdV-2 variant vaccine using the CAV2232-41 strain, and evaluated its safety and immunogenicity in raccoon dogs. Materials and Methods: The growth kinetics of CAV2232-41 were determined using Madin-Darby Canine Kidney (MDCK) cells. The nucleotide sequences of CAV2232 and CAV2232-41 were determined by next-generation sequencing. To generate the CAdV-2 variant vaccine, CAV2232-41 propagated in the MDCK cells was inactivated with 0.1% formaldehyde. Two vaccines were prepared by blending inactivated CAV2232-41 with Cabopol and Rehydragel adjuvants. Safety and immunogenicity of the CAV2232C and CAV2232R vaccines were evaluated in guinea pigs. Safety and immunogenicity of the CAV2232C vaccine were also evaluated in raccoon dogs. The virus neutralizing antibody (VNA) titer against CAV2232-41 was measured in sera collected from immunized guinea pigs and raccoon dogs. Results: CAV2232-41 showed the highest viral titer on days 4-6 post-inoculation and had a deletion in the E3 gene, which was confirmed as a CAdV-2 variant. Guinea pigs inoculated with CAV2232C showed slightly higher VNA titers than those inoculated with CAV2232R 2 weeks after booster vaccination. Raccoon dogs immunized with the CAV2232C vaccine developed high mean VNA titers, while non-vaccinated raccoon dogs were antibody-negative. Conclusion: The CAV2232C vaccine is safe and induces a protective VNA titer in raccoon dogs.

Cross-sectional and skeletal anatomy of long-tailed gorals (Naemorhedus caudatus) using imaging evaluations.

BACKGROUND: Accurate diagnosis of diseases in animals is crucial for their treatment, and imaging evaluations such as radiographs, computed tomography (CT), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are important tools for this purpose. However, a cross-sectional anatomical atlas of normal skeletal and internal organs of long-tailed gorals (Naemorhedus caudatus) has not yet been prepared for diagnosing their diseases. OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to create an anatomical atlas of gorals using CT and MRI, which are imaging techniques that have not been extensively studied in this type of wild animal in Korea. METHODS: The researchers used CT and MRI to create an anatomical atlas of gorals, and selected 37 cross-sections from the head, thoracic, lumbar, and sacrum parts of gorals to produce an average cross-sectional anatomy atlas. RESULTS: This study successfully created an anatomical atlas of gorals using CT and MRI. CONCLUSIONS: The atlas provides valuable information for the diagnosis of diseases in gorals, which can improve their treatment and welfare. The study highlights the importance of developing cross-sectional anatomical atlases of gorals to diagnose and treat their diseases effectively.

RADIOGRAPHIC MEASUREMENT OF VERTEBRAL HEART SCALE IN KOREAN WILD RACCOON DOGS (NYCTEREUTES PROCYONOIDES KOREENSIS).

Raccoon dogs (Nyctereutes procyonoides koreensis), which belong to the Canidae family, are the second most injured wildlife animals rescued by the Gangwon Wildlife Medical Rescue Center. Various imaging evaluation methods including echocardiography have been developed, but thoracic radiography remains essential for the diagnosis and management of heart disease in dogs. In particular, vertebral heart scale (VHS) measurement is usually used to evaluate the dimensions of the heart silhouette on thoracic radiographs and can measure cardiomegaly more objectively. The VHS of 50 raccoon dogs without cardiac diseases were measured using thoracic radiography in right lateral (RL) and ventrodorsal (VD) recumbent positions. The VHS in the RL view of 50 raccoon dogs was 9.03 ± 0.52 vertebrae (v), which was slightly smaller than the VHS measured in the VD view of 46 raccoon dogs (9.79 ± 0.84 v). In addition, the thoracic morphology of raccoon dogs was determined to be intermediate (thoracic depth-to-width ratio, 0.75-1.25), and thoracic morphology, gender, and weight were not significantly correlated with VHS. The VHS of raccoon dogs in this study will help veterinarians diagnose potential cardiac diseases in raccoon dogs.

Prediction of chemical warfare agents based on cholinergic array type meta-predictors.

Molecular insights into chemical safety are very important for sustainable development as well as risk assessment. This study considers how to manage future upcoming harmful agents, especially potentially cholinergic chemical warfare agents (CWAs). For this purpose, the structures of known cholinergic agents were encoded by molecular descriptors. And then each drug target interaction (DTI) was learned from the encoded structures and their cholinergic activities to build DTI classification models for five cholinergic targets with reliable statistical validation (ensemble-AUC: up to 0.790, MCC: up to 0.991, accuracy: up to 0.995). The collected classifiers were transformed into 2D or 3D array type meta-predictors for multi-task: (1) cholinergic prediction and (2) CWA detection. The detection ability of the array classifiers was verified under the imbalanced dataset between CWAs and none CWAs (area under the precision-recall curve: up to 0.997, MCC: up to 0.638, F1-score of none CWAs: up to 0.991, F1-score of CWAs: up to 0.585).

Random-forest model for drug-target interaction prediction via Kullbeck-Leibler divergence.

Virtual screening has significantly improved the success rate of early stage drug discovery. Recent virtual screening methods have improved owing to advances in machine learning and chemical information. Among these advances, the creative extraction of drug features is important for predicting drug-target interaction (DTI), which is a large-scale virtual screening of known drugs. Herein, we report Kullbeck-Leibler divergence (KLD) as a DTI feature and the feature-driven classification model applicable to DTI prediction. For the purpose, E3FP three-dimensional (3D) molecular fingerprints of drugs as a molecular representation allow the computation of 3D similarities between ligands within each target (Q-Q matrix) to identify the uniqueness of pharmacological targets and those between a query and a ligand (Q-L vector) in DTIs. The 3D similarity matrices are transformed into probability density functions via kernel density estimation as a nonparametric estimation. Each density model can exploit the characteristics of each pharmacological target and measure the quasi-distance between the ligands. Furthermore, we developed a random forest model from the KLD feature vectors to successfully predict DTIs for representative 17 targets (mean accuracy: 0.882, out-of-bag score estimate: 0.876, ROC AUC: 0.990). The method is applicable for 2D chemical similarity.

Successful treatment of gastrocnemius muscle rupture in a long-tailed goral rescued from a live trap: a case report.

We describe a case of gastrocnemius muscle rupture in a goral that got caught in a live trap set up to capture wild boars. We established a diagnostic method based on clinical signs and imaging examination findings, including magnetic resonance imaging for gastrocnemius muscle rupture with symptoms such as hindlimb lameness and plantigrade posture of unknown cause in wild animals. Although this condition is rare, this report will help veterinarians diagnose several diseases of the musculoskeletal and nervous systems in wild animals. This is the first report of successful diagnosis and treatment of gastrocnemius muscle rupture in gorals in Korea.

Cerebral Coenurosis of a Long-Tailed Goral, Naemorhedus caudatus, in Korea.

We intended to describe a case of cerebral coenurosis in a long-tailed goral, Naemorhedus caudatus, from Hwacheon-gun, Gangwon-do (Province), in the Korea. The goral, a 10-year-old male, was suffering from neurological symptoms, such as turning the circle to one side without lifting the head straight, and died at 30 days after admission to the wildlife medical rescue center in Chuncheon-si, Gangwon-do. A fluid-filled cyst was detected in the left cerebral hemisphere by computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. The cyst removed from the deceased goral was transparent, about 3×3 cm in size, contained a clear fluid and approximately 320 protoscolices invaginating from the internal germinal layer. The protoscolex had 4 suckers and a rostellum with 28 hooklets arranged in 2 rows. By the present study, a case of cerebral coenurosis was first confirmed in a long-tailed goral, N. caudatus, from Gangwon-do, in Korea. The residents frequently exposed in the sylvatic environment should be careful the accidental infections of zoonotic metacestode of Taenia multiceps, Coenurus cerebralis, in Korea.

Comparing a Query Compound with Drug Target Classes Using 3D-Chemical Similarity.

3D similarity is useful in predicting the profiles of unprecedented molecular frameworks that are 2D dissimilar to known compounds. When comparing pairs of compounds, 3D similarity of the pairs depends on conformational sampling, the alignment method, the chosen descriptors, and the similarity coefficients. In addition to these four factors, 3D chemocentric target prediction of an unknown compound requires compound-target associations, which replace compound-to-compound comparisons with compound-to-target comparisons. In this study, quantitative comparison of query compounds to target classes (one-to-group) was achieved via two types of 3D similarity distributions for the respective target class with parameter optimization for the fitting models: (1) maximum likelihood (ML) estimation of queries, and (2) the Gaussian mixture model (GMM) of target classes. While Jaccard-Tanimoto similarity of query-to-ligand pairs with 3D structures (sampled multi-conformers) can be transformed into query distribution using ML estimation, the ligand pair similarity within each target class can be transformed into a representative distribution of a target class through GMM, which is hyperparameterized via the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. To quantify the discriminativeness of a query ligand against target classes, the Kullback-Leibler (K-L) divergence of each query was calculated and compared between targets. 3D similarity-based K-L divergence together with the probability and the feasibility index, (Fm), showed discriminative power with regard to some query-class associations. The K-L divergence of 3D similarity distributions can be an additional method for (1) the rank of the 3D similarity score or (2) the p-value of one 3D similarity distribution to predict the target of unprecedented drug scaffolds.

Rabies immune status of raccoon dogs residing in areas where rabies bait vaccine has been distributed.

Since 2000, large amounts of rabies bait vaccine have been distributed in two provinces where raccoon dog-mediated rabies has occurred. A total of 146 raccoon dogs were caught in Gangwon and Gyeonggi Provinces from January 2017 to June 2018, and raccoon dog blood samples were collected. Of the 146 raccoon dogs, 13.7% (20/146) had rabies antibodies. In Gyeonggi and Gangwon provinces, the rate of rabies antibody was 8.5% (5/59) and 17.2% (15/87), respectively. Considering these results, it would be desirable to improve the distribution method or use a new bait vaccine to prevent animal rabies in South Korea.