Preparation of the inactivated Newcastle disease vaccine by plasma activated water and evaluation of its protection efficacy.

Vaccination has been regarded as the most effective way to reduce death and morbidity caused by infectious diseases in the livestock industry. In this study, plasma activated water (PAW) was introduced to prepare the inactivated Newcastle disease vaccine. Humoral immune response was tested by hemagglutination inhibition (HI) assay and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). In addition, cell-mediated immune response was evaluated by lymphocyte proliferation assay and flow cytometry. The results demonstrated that the vaccine prepared by PAW at appropriate volume ratio could induce similar antibody titers in specific pathogen-free (SPF) chickens compared with the formaldehyde-inactivated vaccine. The challenge experiment further confirmed that the vaccine prepared by PAW conferred solid protection against virulent NDV. Moreover, it was found that the vaccine could promote the proliferation of lymphocytes and stimulate cell-mediated immunity of SPF chickens. Furthermore, analysis of electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy and physicochemical properties of PAW suggested reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS) played an essential role in the virus inactivation. Therefore, this study indicated that NDV treated by PAW in an appropriate ratio retained immunogenicity on the premise of virus inactivation. PAW as a promising strategy could be used to prepare inactivated vaccine for Newcastle disease.

Protein-coding genes, long non-coding RNAs combined with microRNAs as a novel clinical multi-dimension transcriptome signature to predict prognosis in ovarian cancer.

Ovarian cancer is prevalent in women which is usually diagnosed at an advanced stage with a high mortality rate. The aim of this study is to investigate protein-coding gene, long non-coding RNA, and microRNA associated with the prognosis of patients with ovarian serous carcinoma by mining data from TCGA (The Cancer Genome Atlas) public database. The clinical data of ovarian serous carcinoma patients was downloaded from TCGA database in September, 2016. The mean age and survival time of 407 patients with ovarian serous carcinoma were 59.71 ± 11.54 years and 32.98 ± 26.66 months. Cox's proportional hazards regression analysis was conducted to analyze genes that were significantly associated with the survival of ovarian serous carcinoma patients in the training group. Using the random survival forest algorithm, Kaplan-Meier and ROC analysis, we kept prognostic genes to construct the multi-dimensional transcriptome signature with max area under ROC curve (AUC) (0.69 in the training group and 0.62 in the test group). The selected signature composed by VAT1L, CALR, LINC01456, RP11-484L8.1, MIR196A1 and MIR148A, separated the training group patients into high-risk or low-risk subgroup with significantly different survival time (median survival: 35.3 months vs. 64.9 months, P < 0.001). The signature was validated in the test group showing similar prognostic values (median survival: 41.6 months in high-risk vs. 57.4 months in low-risk group, P=0.018). Chi-square test and multivariable Cox regression analysis showed that the signature was an independent prognostic factor for patients with ovarian serous carcinoma. Finally, we validated the expression of the genes experimentally.

A novel and sensitive method for the detection of enrofloxacin in food using time-resolved fluoroimmunoassay.

A time-resolved fluoroimmunoassay (TRFIA) technique is developed to detect enrofloxacin (ENR) contamination in food. By using ENR-ovalbumin, anti-ENR antibodies and europium-labeled goat anti-rabbit antibodies, we establish an indirect and competitive method for ENR-TRFIA. The sensitivity of the method is high, with a detection limit of 0.01 ng/mL. The tests show that the technique's sensitivity is 1 µg/kg in eel, pork and chicken, and 1 µg/L in honey. The detection range attained is 0.01-100 ng/mL and within the detection range the intra- and inter-batch coefficients of variation of the ENR-TRFIA method are 2.4% and 9.2%, respectively. The data obtained from eel samples by TRFIA and enzyme-linked immunoassay are in good agreement. The assay did not cross-react with other quinolones, which commonly exist in food. The study suggests that ENR-TRFIA is a simple, sensitive and economic method of screening large quantities of samples, and has good prospects for application.