Development and application of a blocking ELISA based on a N protein monoclonal antibody for the antibody detection against porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus 2.

Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) is one of the most widespread illnesses in the world's swine business. To detect the antibodies against PRRSV-2, a blocking enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (B-ELISA) was developed, utilizing a PRRSV-2 N protein monoclonal antibody as the detection antibody. A checkerboard titration test was used to determine the optimal detection antibody dilution, tested pig serum dilution and purified PRRSV coated antigen concentration. After analyzing 174 negative pig sera and 451 positive pig sera, a cutoff value of 40 % was selected to distinguish between positive and negative sera using receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. The specificity and sensitivity of the assay were evaluated to equal 99.8 % and 96 %, respectively. The method had no cross-reaction with PCV2, PRV, PPV, CSFV, PEDV, TGEV, and PRRSV-1 serum antibodies, and the coefficients of variation of intra-batch and inter-batch repeatability experiments were both <10 %. A total of 215 clinical serum samples were tested, and the relative coincidence rate with commercial ELISA kit was 99.06 %, and the kappa value was 0.989, indicating that these two detection results exhibited high consistency. Overall, the B-ELISA should serve as an ideal method for large-scale serological investigation of PRRSV-2 antibodies in domestic pigs.

Development of a highly sensitive TaqMan method based on multi-probe strategy: its application in ASFV detection.

The establishment of high sensitive detection method for various pathogenic microorganisms remains constantly concerned. In the present study, multi-probe strategy was first systematically investigated followed by establishing a highly sensitive TaqMan real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR (qPCR) method for detecting African swine fever virus (ASFV). Briefly, four probes based on the B646L gene of ASFV were designed and the effects of different combinations of the probes in a single TaqMan qPCR assay on the detection sensitivity were investigated. As less as 0.5-5 copies/µl of the ASFV gene was detected by the established TaqMan qPCR assay. Furthermore, plasmid harboring the B646L in water samples could be concentrated 1000 times by ultrafiltration to enable a highly sensitive detection of trace viral nucleic acids. Moreover, no cross-reactivity was observed with other common clinical swine viruses such as PCV2, PCV3, PCV4, PEDV, PDCoV, CSFV, PRRSV, and PRV. When detecting 173 clinical porcine serum samples, the coincidence rate between the developed method and WOAH (World Organization of Animal Health) recommended method was 100%. This study might provide an integrated strategy to achieve higher detection sensitivity of trace pathogenic microorganisms and applicably sensitive TaqMan-based qPCR assays.

Nitrite-dependent anaerobic methane oxidation (N-DAMO) in global aquatic environments: A review.

The vast majority of processes in the carbon and nitrogen cycles are driven by microorganisms. The nitrite-dependent anaerobic oxidation of methane (N-DAMO) process links carbon and nitrogen cycles, offering a novel approach for the simultaneous reduction of methane emissions and nitrite pollution. However, there is currently no comprehensive summary of the current status of the N-DAMO process in natural aquatic environments. Therefore, our study aims to fill this knowledge gap by conducting a comprehensive review of the global research trends in N-DAMO processes in various aquatic environments (excluding artificial bioreactors). Our review mainly focused on molecular identification, global study sites, and their interactions with other elemental cycling processes. Furthermore, we performed a data integration analysis to unveil the effects of key environmental factors on the abundance of N-DAMO bacteria and the rate of N-DAMO process. By combining the findings from the literature review and data integration analysis, we proposed future research perspectives on N-DAMO processes in global aquatic environments. Our overarching goal is to advance the understanding of the N-DAMO process and its role in synergistically reducing carbon emissions and removing nitrogen. By doing so, we aim to make a significant contribution to the timely achievement of China's carbon peak and carbon neutrality targets.

Recent Development and Applications of Polydopamine in Tissue Repair and Regeneration Biomaterials.

The various tissue damages are a severe problem to human health. The limited human tissue regenerate ability requires suitable biomaterials to help damage tissue repair and regeneration. Therefore, many researchers devoted themselves to exploring biomaterials suitable for tissue repair and regeneration. Polydopamine (PDA) as a natural and multifunctional material which is inspired by mussel has been widely applied in different biomaterials. The excellent properties of PDA, such as strong adhesion, photothermal and high drug-loaded capacity, seem to be born for tissue repair and regeneration. Furthermore, PDA combined with different materials can exert unexpected effects. Thus, to inspire researchers, this review summarizes the recent and representative development of PDA biomaterials in tissue repair and regeneration. This article focuses on why apply PDA in these biomaterials and what PDA can do in different tissue injuries.

Targeting Diverse Wounds and Scars: Recent Innovative Bio-design of Microneedle Patch for Comprehensive Management.

Wounds and the subsequent formation of scars constitute a unified and complex phased process. Effective treatment is crucial; however, the diverse therapeutic approaches for different wounds and scars, as well as varying treatment needs at different stages, present significant challenges in selecting appropriate interventions. Microneedle patch (MNP), as a novel minimally invasive transdermal drug delivery system, has the potential for integrated and programmed treatment of various diseases and has shown promising applications in different types of wounds and scars. In this comprehensive review, the latest applications and biotechnological innovations of MNPs in these fields are thoroughly explored, summarizing their powerful abilities to accelerate healing, inhibit scar formation, and manage related symptoms. Moreover, potential applications in various scenarios are discussed. Additionally, the side effects, manufacturing processes, and material selection to explore the clinical translational potential are investigated. This groundwork can provide a theoretical basis and serve as a catalyst for future innovations in the pursuit of favorable therapeutic options for skin tissue regeneration.

Identification of specific antigens between Toxoplasma gondii and Neospora caninum and application of potential diagnostic antigen TgGRA54.

Toxoplasma gondii is a zoonotic parasite that is very common in livestock. Meat products from livestock infected with T. gondii are one of the important transmission routes of toxoplasmosis. Rapid and reliable diagnosis is a prerequisite for the prevention and control of toxoplasmosis. Neospora caninum and T. gondii are similar in morphology and life history, and there are a large number of cross antigens between them, making clinical diagnosis of toxoplasmosis more difficult. In this study, immunoprecipitation-mass spectrometry (IP-MS) was used to screen for T. gondii-specific antigens, and the specific antigen was cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli. The specific antigen was then used to establish an indirect ELISA diagnostic method. A total of 241 specific antigens of T. gondii and 662 cross antigens between T. gondii and N. caninum were screened by IP-MS. Through bioinformatics analysis and homology comparison, seven proteins were selected for gene cloning and prokaryotic expression, and the most suitable antigen, TgGRA54, was selected to establish an indirect ELISA for T. gondii. Compared with the indirect immunofluorescent antibody test (IFAT), the positive coincidence rate of the ELISA based on rTgGRA54 was 100% (72/72) and the negative coincidence rate was 80.95% (17/21). The indirect ELISA method based on TgGRA54 recombinant protein was established to detect T. gondii antibodies in bovine sera, and the recombinant protein reacted well with T. gondii positive sera from sheep, mouse, and swine, indicating that the recombinant protein is a good diagnostic antigen for T. gondii.

Exploiting multi-granularity visual features for retinal layer segmentation in human eyes.

Accurate segmentation of retinal layer boundaries can facilitate the detection of patients with early ophthalmic disease. Typical segmentation algorithms operate at low resolutions without fully exploiting multi-granularity visual features. Moreover, several related studies do not release their datasets that are key for the research on deep learning-based solutions. We propose a novel end-to-end retinal layer segmentation network based on ConvNeXt, which can retain more feature map details by using a new depth-efficient attention module and multi-scale structures. In addition, we provide a semantic segmentation dataset containing 206 retinal images of healthy human eyes (named NR206 dataset), which is easy to use as it does not require any additional transcoding processing. We experimentally show that our segmentation approach outperforms state-of-the-art approaches on this new dataset, achieving, on average, a Dice score of 91.3% and mIoU of 84.4%. Moreover, our approach achieves state-of-the-art performance on a glaucoma dataset and a diabetic macular edema (DME) dataset, showing that our model is also suitable for other applications. We will make our source code and the NR206 dataset publicly available at (https://github.com/Medical-Image-Analysis/Retinal-layer-segmentation).

Corrigendum: Validation of the GALAD model and establishment of a new model for HCC detection in Chinese patients.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fonc.2022.1037742.].

Proposal of Four New Aureobasidium Species for Exopolysaccharide Production.

In this study, 99 strains of Aureobasidium species were isolated from various samples collected from different locations in China, among which 14 isolates showed different morphological characteristics to other strains identified as known Aureobasidium species. Based on morphological characteristics, those 14 strains were classified into four groups, represented by stains of KCL139, MDSC-10, XZY411-4, and MQL9-100, respectively. Molecular analysis of the internal transcriptional spacer (ITS) and part of the large ribosome subunit (D1/D2 domains) indicated that those four groups represent four new species in the Aureobasidium. Therefore, the names Aureobasidium insectorum sp. nov., A. planticola sp. nov., A. motuoense sp. nov., and A. intercalariosporum sp. nov. are proposed for KCL139, MDSC-10, XZY411-4, and MQL9-100, respectively. We also found that there were differences in the yield of exopolysaccharides (EPS) among and within species, indicating strain-related exopolysaccharide-producing diversity.

Comparisons of the effects of topical anti-scar drugs on post-surgical facial scar formation: a clinical investigation.

OBJECTIVES: Scarring is a common but intricate problem, and topical anti-scarring drugs are the most widely used treatment. However, the wide range of drugs available makes it difficult for doctors and patients to choose from because of the lack of clinical comparisons. Therefore, we conducted an observational study to compare the clinical efficacy of different topical anti-scarring drugs. METHODS: Patients with post-suturing facial scars were enrolled in this study. The questionnaire was designed to record the basic characteristics of the patients. The Vancouver Scar Scale, SCAR scale, and measurements of scar width and thickness were used to evaluate scar quality. Patients who met the inclusion criteria were divided into four groups for comparison: the silicone preparation (SP), onion extract (OE), asiaticoside (AC) groups, and the untreated blank control (BC) group. The overall data were analyzed before they were confined to the zygomatic region. RESULTS: A total of 127 eligible patients were enrolled in this study. The results of the total and zygomatic scars demonstrated that SP, OE, and AC groups resulted in narrower scars and lower scar scale scores. The SP group depicted higher melanin efficacy than the other two groups. The OE group had the best pliability, whereas the AC group had the thinnest scar. CONCLUSIONS: In this study, we acquired expertise with different topical anti-scar agents: SP significantly reduced melanin levels, OE mainly benefited scar pliability, and AC was better at reducing scar thickness. These differences may be more instructive for clinical applications.

Recycling waste engine oil as a viscosity reducer for asphalt rubber: an insight from molecular dynamics simulations and laboratory tests.

Traditional asphalt rubber (AR) has a high viscosity and poor fluidity, which makes its construction very difficult. Reducing viscosity has been identified as one of the effective way of solving these problems. Meanwhile, the mass production and improper discharge of waste engine oil (WEO) have a serious impact on the ecological environment, and its rational reuse needs to be addressed. In this paper, molecular models of AR and WEO-modified asphalt rubber (WEOMAR) was established by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The influence of WEO on asphalt component's behavior was studied by radial distribution function (RDF) and diffusion coefficient (D). Then, the microscopic mechanism of viscosity reduction was evaluated. Furthermore, the viscosity reduction behavior of WEO in AR was analyzed and verified by basic properties and low field nuclear magnetic resonance (LF-NMR) laboratory tests. The results showed that the RDF peak value of rubber molecules in WEOMAR is 14.07 higher than that of AR, at r = 2.16 Å. The D of saturated and aromatic components in WEOMAR obviously increased by 140% and 67.9%, respectively. The light component molecules increased after adding WEO into AR. The rubber molecule reduces the contact with asphaltene and resin, and the viscosity of AR is significantly reduced, which is confirmed by the macro tests.

Enantioselectivity in the toxicological effects of chiral pesticides: A review.

As a special category of pesticides, chiral pesticides have increased the difficulty in investigating pesticide toxicity. Based on their usage, chiral pesticides can be divided into insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides. Over the past decades, great efforts have been made on elucidating their toxicological effects. However, no literature has reviewed the enantioselective toxicity of chiral pesticides since 2014. In recent years, more chiral pesticides have been registered for application. As such, huge research progresses have been achieved in enantioselective toxicity of chiral pesticides. Generally, more researches have remedied the knowledge gap in toxicological effects of old and new chiral pesticides. And the toxicological endpoints being evaluated have become more specific rather than centering on basic toxicity and target organisms. Besides, the underlying mechanisms accounting for the enantioselectivity in toxicological effects of chiral pesticides have been discussed as well. All in all, this review provides the critical knowledge for risk assessments, and help to drive the green-technology of single- or enriched-enantiomer pesticides and formulation of relevant laws and regulations.

IL-18 deficiency ameliorates the progression from AKI to CKD.

Inflammation is an important factor in the progression from acute kidney injury (AKI) to chronic kidney disease (CKD). The role of interleukin (IL)-18 in this progression has not been examined. We aimed to clarify whether and how IL-18 limits this progression. In a folic acid induced renal injury mouse model, we studied the time course of kidney injury and renal IL-18 expression. In wild-type mice following injection, renal IL-18 expression increased. In parallel, we characterized other processes, including at day 2, renal tubular necroptosis assessed by receptor-interacting serine/threonine-protein kinase1 (RIPK1) and RIPK3; at day 14, transdifferentiation (assessed by transforming growth factor ß1, vimentin and E-cadherin); and at day 30, fibrosis (assessed by collagen 1). In IL-18 knockout mice given folate, compared to wild-type mice, tubular damage and necroptosis, transdifferentiation, and renal fibrosis were attenuated. Importantly, IL-18 deletion decreased numbers of renal M1 macrophages and M1 macrophage cytokine levels at day 14, and reduced M2 macrophages numbers and macrophage cytokine expression at day 30. In HK-2 cells, IL-18 knockdown attenuated necroptosis, transdifferentiating and fibrosis.In patients with tubulointerstitial nephritis, IL-18 protein expression was increased on renal biopsies using immunohistochemistry. We conclude that genetic IL-18 deficiency ameliorates renal tubular damage, necroptosis, cell transdifferentiation, and fibrosis. The renoprotective role of IL-18 deletion in the progression from AKI to fibrosis may be mediated by reducing a switch in predominance from M1 to profibrotic M2 macrophages during the process of kidney repair.

LNA-anti-miR-150 alleviates renal interstitial fibrosis by reducing pro-inflammatory M1/M2 macrophage polarization.

Renal interstitial fibrosis (RIF) is a common pathological feature contributing to chronic injury and maladaptive repair following acute kidney injury. Currently, there is no effective therapy for RIF. We have reported that locked nuclear acid (LNA)-anti-miR-150 antagonizes pro-fibrotic pathways in human renal tubular cells by regulating the suppressor of cytokine signal 1 (SOCS1)/Janus kinase (JAK)/signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT) pathway. In the present study, we aimed to clarify whether LNA-anti-miR-150 attenuates folic acid-induced RIF mice by regulating this pathway and by reducing pro-inflammatory M1/M2 macrophage polarization. We found that renal miR-150 was upregulated in folic acid-induced RIF mice at day 30 after injection. LNA-anti-miR-150 alleviated the degree of RIF, as shown by periodic acid-Schiff and Masson staining and by the expression of pro-fibrotic proteins, including alpha-smooth muscle actin and fibronectin. In RIF mice, SOCS1 was downregulated, and p-JAK1 and p-STAT1 were upregulated. LNA-anti-miR-150 reversed the changes in renal SOCS1, p-JAK1, and p-STAT1 expression. In addition, renal infiltration of total macrophages, pro-inflammatory M1 and M2 macrophages as well as their secreted cytokines were increased in RIF mice compared to control mice. Importantly, in folic acid-induced RIF mice, LNA-anti-miR-150 attenuated the renal infiltration of total macrophages and pro-inflammatory subsets, including M1 macrophages expressing CD11c and M2 macrophages expressing CD206. We conclude that the anti-renal fibrotic role of LNA-anti-miR-150 in folic acid-induced RIF mice may be mediated by reducing pro-inflammatory M1 and M2 macrophage polarization via the SOCS1/JAK1/STAT1 pathway.

Mussel-inspired collagen-hyaluronic acid composite scaffold with excellent antioxidant properties and sustained release of a growth factor for enhancing diabetic wound healing.

Long-term non-healing diabetic wounds are always a serious challenge and a global healthcare burden that needs to be resolved urgently in the clinic. Prolonged inflammation and impaired angiogenesis are the main direct causes of diabetic wounds. With the development of polymer biomaterials, various wound dressings have been created, but a few of them have been applied to the clinical management of diabetic wounds. Here, we developed a mussel-inspired bioactive scaffold consisting mainly of collagen and hyaluronic acid, which are natural biopolymer materials contained in human tissues. First, we fabricated different polydopamine modified lyophilized collagen hyaluronic acid scaffolds under different concentrations of dopamine alkaline solutions, 0.5, 1, 2 â€‹mg/mL, so named CHS-PDA-0.5, CHS-PDA-1, CHS-PDA-2. After testing their physical and chemical properties, antioxidant effect, inflammation regulation, as well as drug loading and release capabilities, we obtained a bioactive endothelial growth factor (EGF)-loaded wound dressing, CHS-PDA-2@EGF, which can resist reactive oxygen species (ROS) and promote the regeneration of chronic wounds in diabetic rats by reducing inflammation. In addition, the scaffold showed excellent swelling ability, a certain coagulation effect and reasonable degradation. Therefore, the scaffold has great potential to be used in clinical diabetic wound treatment as a low-cost and easily available wound dressing to accelerate chronic wound healing.

Trends in opioid-related crime incidents and comparison with opioid overdose outcomes in the United States.

BACKGROUND: The opioid epidemic in the United States remains a critically important public health issue and continues to worsen. While healthcare data and outcomes are commonly used to characterize the state of the epidemic and evaluate the impact of policy changes, criminal justice data is under-utilized in research despite its high relevance and unique role in the opioid crisis. Our objective is to understand temporal trends in opioid-related crime incidents and the comparability with the dynamic patterns in health-related outcomes. METHODS: We used incident-level crime data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) during 2005-2018. We identified all incidents involving opioids, which were grouped by opioid type (illicit and prescription opioids), and by drug-related criminal activity (possession and distribution). We estimated annual opioid-related crime incident rates per 100,000 residents. Joinpoint analysis was performed to examine the significant changes in the temporal trends of crime incident rates. We examined the association between opioid-related crime incidents and health outcomes using state fixed effects regression models. RESULTS: Among the NIBRS covered population, incident rates of all opioid-related crimes increased significantly from 32.0 to 91.4 per 100,000 between 2005 and 2016, followed by a moderate decrease to 78.3 per 100,000 by 2018. The initial increase in incident rates was predominantly driven by prescription opioid-related incidents which increased by 19.6% per year from 2005 to 2010. Between 2010 and 2015, most of the increase came from illicit opioid-related incidents which accelerated to an increase of 21.6% per year. Opioid-related crime incident rates were found to be significantly and positively associated with rates of opioid-related emergency department visits, inpatient hospitalization, and overdose mortality. CONCLUSION: Crime data describe temporal trends and shifting patterns in the opioid epidemic that are highly consistent with health-related data. Criminal justice data could be a potentially powerful tool to understand the changing landscape of opioid and substance use.

Validation of the GALAD model and establishment of a new model for HCC detection in Chinese patients.

Background: GALAD model is a statistical model used to estimate the possibility of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in patients with chronic liver disease. Many studies with other ethnic populations have shown that it has high sensitivity and specificity. However, whether this model can be used for Chinese patients remains to be determined. Our study was conducted to verify the performance of GALAD model in a Chinese cohort and construct a new model that is more appropriately for Chinese populations. Methods: There are total 512 patients enrolled in the study, which can be divided into training set and validation set. 80 patients with primary liver cancer, 139 patients with chronic liver disease and 87 healthy people were included in the training set. Through the ROC(receiver operating characteristic) curve analysis, the recognition performance of GALAD model for liver cancer was evaluated, and the GAADPB model was established by logistic regression, including gender, age, AFP, DCP, total protein, and total bilirubin. The validation set (75 HCC patients and 130 CLD patients) was used to evaluate the performance of the GAADPB model. Result: The GALAD and GAADPB achieved excellent performance (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve [AUC], 0.925, 0.945), and were better than GAAP, Doylestown, BALAD-2, aMAP, AFP, AFP-L3%, DCP and combined detection of AFP, AFP-L3 and DCP (AUCs: 0.894, 0.870, 0.648, 0.545, 0.879, 0.782, 0.820 and 0.911) for detecting HCC from CLD in the training set. As for early stage of HCC (BCLC 0/A), GAADPB had the best sensitivity compared to GALAD, ADP and DCP (56.3%, 53.1%, 40.6%, 50.0%). GAADPB had better performance than GALAD in the test set, AUC (0.896 vs 0.888). Conclusions: The new GAADPB model was powerful and stable, with better performance than the GALAD and other models, and it also was promising in the area of HCC prognosis prediction. Further study on the real-world HCC patients in China are needed.

The Occurrence and Meta-Analysis of Investigations on Sarcocystis Infection among Ruminants (Ruminantia) in Mainland China.

Sarcocystis is a zoonotic pathogen that threatens public health and the quality of food safety. To determine the Sarcocystis spp. prevalence in ruminants (Ruminantia) in China, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis. Data were collected from English databases (PubMed and Web of Science) and Chinese databases (Chinese Web of knowledge (CNKI), Database for Chinese Technical Periodicals (VIP) and Wan Fang databases). A total of 20,301 ruminants from 54 publications were evaluated. The pooled prevalence of Sarcocystis spp. among ruminants in mainland China was 65% (95% CI: 57-72%). Our results indicate that sarcocystosis is prevalent in ruminants, which show significant geographical differences. Therefore, it there is a need for continuous monitoring of infections of Sarcocystis spp. in ruminants to reduce the threat to human health and economic losses to the animal industry.

Design and Simulation of Human Resource Allocation Model Based on Double-Cycle Neural Network.

The rationalization of human resource management is helpful for enterprises to efficiently train talents in the field, improve the management mode, and increase the overall resource utilization rate of enterprises. The current computational models applied in the field of human resources are usually based on statistical computation, which can no longer meet the processing needs of massive data and do not take into account the hidden characteristics of data, which can easily lead to the problem of information scarcity. The paper combines recurrent convolutional neural network and traditional human resource allocation algorithm and designs a double recurrent neural network job matching recommendation algorithm applicable to the human resource field, which can improve the traditional algorithm data training quality problem. In the experimental part of the algorithm, the arithmetic F1 value in the paper is 0.823, which is 20.1% and 7.4% higher than the other two algorithms, respectively, indicating that the algorithm can improve the hidden layer features of the data and then improve the training quality of the data and improve the job matching and recommendation accuracy.

Thermal Conductivity of ß-Phase Ga2O3 and (AlxGa1-x)2O3 Heteroepitaxial Thin Films.

Heteroepitaxy of ß-phase gallium oxide (ß-Ga2O3) thin films on foreign substrates shows promise for the development of next-generation deep ultraviolet solar blind photodetectors and power electronic devices. In this work, the influences of the film thickness and crystallinity on the thermal conductivity of (2̅01)-oriented ß-Ga2O3 heteroepitaxial thin films were investigated. Unintentionally doped ß-Ga2O3 thin films were grown on c-plane sapphire substrates with off-axis angles of 0° and 6° toward ⟨112̅0⟩ via metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) and low-pressure chemical vapor deposition. The surface morphology and crystal quality of the ß-Ga2O3 thin films were characterized using scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and Raman spectroscopy. The thermal conductivities of the ß-Ga2O3 films were measured via time-domain thermoreflectance. The interface quality was studied using scanning transmission electron microscopy. The measured thermal conductivities of the submicron-thick ß-Ga2O3 thin films were relatively low as compared to the intrinsic bulk value. The measured thin film thermal conductivities were compared with the Debye-Callaway model incorporating phononic parameters derived from first-principles calculations. The comparison suggests that the reduction in the thin film thermal conductivity can be partially attributed to the enhanced phonon-boundary scattering when the film thickness decreases. They were found to be a strong function of not only the layer thickness but also the film quality, resulting from growth on substrates with different offcut angles. Growth of ß-Ga2O3 films on 6° offcut sapphire substrates was found to result in higher crystallinity and thermal conductivity than films grown on on-axis c-plane sapphire. However, the ß-Ga2O3 films grown on 6° offcut sapphire exhibit a lower thermal boundary conductance at the ß-Ga2O3/sapphire heterointerface. In addition, the thermal conductivity of MOVPE-grown (2̅01)-oriented ß-(AlxGa1-x)2O3 thin films with Al compositions ranging from 2% to 43% was characterized. Because of phonon-alloy disorder scattering, the ß-(AlxGa1-x)2O3 films exhibit lower thermal conductivities (2.8-4.7 W/m·K) than the ß-Ga2O3 thin films. The dominance of the alloy disorder scattering in ß-(AlxGa1-x)2O3 is further evidenced by the weak temperature dependence of the thermal conductivity. This work provides fundamental insight into the physical interactions that govern phonon transport within heteroepitaxially grown ß-phase Ga2O3 and (AlxGa1-x)2O3 thin films and lays the groundwork for the thermal modeling and design of ß-Ga2O3 electronic and optoelectronic devices.