Outbreak of Human Trichinellosis - Arizona, Minnesota, and South Dakota, 2022.

Trichinellosis is a parasitic zoonotic disease transmitted through the consumption of meat from animals infected with Trichinella spp. nematodes. In North America, human trichinellosis is rare and is most commonly acquired through consumption of wild game meat. In July 2022, a hospitalized patient with suspected trichinellosis was reported to the Minnesota Department of Health. One week before symptom onset, the patient and eight other persons shared a meal that included bear meat that had been frozen for 45 days before being grilled and served rare with vegetables that had been cooked with the meat. Investigation identified six trichinellosis cases, including two in persons who consumed only the vegetables. Motile Trichinella larvae were found in remaining bear meat that had been frozen for >15 weeks. Molecular testing identified larvae from the bear meat as Trichinella nativa, a freeze-resistant species. Persons who consume meat from wild game animals should be aware that that adequate cooking is the only reliable way to kill Trichinella parasites and that infected meat can cross-contaminate other foods.

Outbreak of Human Trichinellosis - Arizona, Minnesota, and South Dakota, 2022.

Trichinellosis is a parasitic zoonotic disease transmitted through the consumption of meat from animals infected with Trichinella spp. nematodes. In North America, human trichinellosis is rare and is most commonly acquired through consumption of wild game meat. In July 2022, a hospitalized patient with suspected trichinellosis was reported to the Minnesota Department of Health. One week before symptom onset, the patient and eight other persons shared a meal that included bear meat that had been frozen for 45 days before being grilled and served rare with vegetables that had been cooked with the meat. Investigation identified six trichinellosis cases, including two in persons who consumed only the vegetables. Motile Trichinella larvae were found in remaining bear meat that had been frozen for >15 weeks. Molecular testing identified larvae from the bear meat as Trichinella nativa, a freeze-resistant species. Persons who consume meat from wild game animals should be aware that that adequate cooking is the only reliable way to kill Trichinella parasites and that infected meat can cross-contaminate other foods.

Atypical B cells promote cancer progression and poor response to Bacillus Calmette-Guérin in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer.

Poor response to Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) immunotherapy remains a major barrier in the management of patients with non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). Multiple factors are associated with poor outcomes, including biological aging and female sex. More recently, it has emerged that a B-cell infiltrated pre-treatment immune microenvironment of NMIBC tumors can influence the response to intra-vesically administered BCG. The mechanisms underlying the roles of B cells in NMIBC are poorly understood. Here, we show that B-cell dominant tertiary lymphoid structures (TLSs), a hallmark feature of the chronic mucosal immune response, are abundant and located close to the epithelial compartment in pre-treatment tumors from BCG non-responders. Digital spatial proteomic profiling of whole tumor sections from male and female patients with NMIBC who underwent treatment with intravesical BCG, revealed higher expression of immune exhaustion-associated proteins within the tumor-adjacent TLSs in both responders and non-responders. Chronic local inflammation, induced by the N-butyl-N-(4-hydroxybutyl) nitrosamine (BBN) carcinogen, led to TLS formation with recruitment and differentiation of the immunosuppressive atypical B-cell (ABC) subset within the bladder microenvironment, predominantly in aging female mice compared to their male counterparts. Depletion of ABCs simultaneous to BCG treatment delayed cancer progression in female mice. Our findings provide evidence indicating a role for ABCs in BCG response and will inform future development of therapies targeting the B cell-exhaustion axis.