Risk assessment for cross-border transmission of multi-country Mpox outbreaks in 2022.

OBJECTIVES: Global trade and travel have facilitated infectious disease transmission. In 2022, over a short time, cross-border Mpox (monkeypox) outbreaks were reported. Since, most countries are at risk of cross-border Mpox transmissions, in this study, we developed a real-time risk assessment model for the cross-border transmission of Mpox. METHODS: This model includes priori indicators related to the source area before the Mpox outbreak and posterior indicators derived from the quantitative data evaluation afterward. Based on transportation, this model can also be used to assess the global import risk of Mpox for specific countries and cities. RESULTS: European risk values displayed high levels between May and July 2022 and gradually decreased after July. After September 2022, risk values elevated in most countries and regions in the Americas. As for China, high importation risk cities were highly exposed to the United States and moderately exposed to Australia and Germany. Some cities were exposed to the potential risks from only one source country. CONCLUSIONS: Dynamic surveillance of the cross-border spread of infectious diseases is essential. Importation risks vary widely across cities and regions, and developing risk prevention and control strategies specific to the traffic flow, medical care capabilities, and risk levels in the main source countries are essential.

The assessment of epigenetic diversity, differentiation, and structure in the 'Fuji' mutation line implicates roles of epigenetic modification in the occurrence of different mutant groups as well as spontaneous mutants.

The 'Fuji' line includes many varieties with a similar genetic background and consistent inducement factors with epigenetic occurrence, thus it may be considered an ideal candidate for epigenetic research. In this study, 91 bud mutations of 'Fuji' apple were used as the test materials. Using the genetic variation within 'Fuji' as the control, the characteristics of epigenetic variation at different levels in both varieties and mutant groups were examined. The results showed that: (1) the global genomic DNA methylation level of the 91 bud mutants of 'Fuji' ranged from 29.120%-45.084%, with an average of 35.910%. Internal cytosine methylation was the main DNA methylation pattern. Regarding the variation of methylation patterns of 'Fuji' mutants, the vast majority of loci maintained the original methylation pattern existed in 'Fuji'. CHG methylation variation was the main type of variation; (2) the variation in methylation patterns between the mutant groups was greater than that of methylation levels. Among these patterns, the variation in CHG methylation patterns (including CHG hypermethylation and CHG demethylation) was expected to be dominant. The observed variation in methylation levels was more important in the Color mutant group; however, the variation in methylation patterns was more obvious in both the early maturation and Spur mutant groups. Moreover, the range of variation in the Early-maturation group was much wider than that in the Spur mutant group; (3) epigenetic diversity and genetic diversity were both low between the mutant groups. In the 'Fuji' mutant groups, there was few correlation between genetic and epigenetic variation, and epigenetic differentiation resulted in more loci with moderate or greater differentiation; (4) the purifying selection seemed to play a major role in the differentiation of different groups of 'Fuji' mutants (65.618%), but epigenetic diversity selection still occurred at nearly 35% of loci. Sixteen epigenetic outlier loci were detected.