Chlamydia psittaci detected at a live poultry wholesale market in central China.

BACKGROUND: We investigated the presence of Chlamydia psittaci in poultry and the environment in live poultry wholesale markets in Changsha during 2021-2022 and conducted a phylogenetic analysis to understand its distribution in this market. METHODS: In total, 483 samples were analyzed using real-time polymerase chain reaction and 17 C. psittaci-positive samples using high-throughput sequencing, BLAST similarity, and phylogenetic analysis. RESULTS: Twenty-two out of 483 poultry and environmental samples were positive for C. psittaci (overall positivity rate: 4.55%) with no difference in positivity rates over 12 months. Chlamydia psittaci was detected at 11 sampling points (overall positivity rate: 27.5%), including chicken, duck, and pigeon/chicken/duck/goose shops, with pigeon shops having the highest positivity rate (46.67%). The highest positivity rates were found in sewage (12.5%), poultry fecal (7.43%), cage swab (6.59%), avian pharyngeal/cloacal swab (3.33%), and air (2.29%) samples. The ompA sequences were identified in two strains of C. psittaci, which were determined to bear genotype B using phylogenetic analysis. Thus, during monitoring, C. psittaci genotype B was detected in the poultry and environmental samples from the poultry wholesale market in Changsha. CONCLUSIONS: To address the potential zoonotic threat, C. psittaci monitoring programs in live poultry markets should be enhanced.

Prolonged oral intake of green tea polyphenols attenuates delirium-like behaviors in mice induced by anesthesia/surgery.

Postoperative delirium (POD) is a severe postoperative complication characterized by delirium-like symptoms. So far, no effective preventable strategy for POD prevention has been identified. Reports show that the consumption of green tea polyphenols (GTP) is associated with better cognitive function by modulating the composition of gut microbiota. Whether GTP also play a role in alleviating POD through gut microbiota is unknown. Herein, we studied the effect of prolonged (eight weeks) GTP intake on postoperative delirium in C57BL/6 mice with laparotomies under isoflurane anesthesia (anesthesia/surgery). We subsequently investigated anesthesia/surgery caused behavioral changes and increased the expression of malondialdehyde (MAD), an oxidative stress marker, and the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), an antioxidant marker, in the mice at 6 h after anesthesia/surgery. However, GTP administration reversed these changes and alleviated anesthesia/surgery-induced decrease in the abundance of gut bacterial genera, Roseburia. Further, fecal microbiota transplant demonstrated that compared with mice in the control group, treatment of C57BL/6 mice with feces from GTP-treated mice had a slight effect on the behavioral changes of mice. These data suggest that daily consumption of GTP could protect against anesthesia/surgery-induced behavioral changes, which is closely associated with gut microbiota modification by GTP.

Dynamic changes of IgM and IgG antibodies in asymptomatic patients as an effective way to detect SARS-CoV-2 infection.

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 has become a global pandemic, and close contacts and asymptomatic patients are worthy of attention. METHODS: A total of 1844 people in close contacts with 76 COVID-19 patients were investigated, and nasopharyngeal swabs and venous blood were collected for centralized medical quarantine observation. Real-time fluorescence was used to detect SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid in nasopharyngeal swabs of all close contacts, and the colloidal gold method was used to detect serum-specific antibodies. Levels of IgM- and IgG-specific antibodies were detected quantitatively through chemiluminescence from the first nucleic acid turned negative date (0 week) and on weekly intervals of ≤1 week, 1-2 weeks, 2-3 weeks, 3-4 weeks, 4-5 weeks, 5-6 weeks, and 6-7 weeks. RESULTS: The total positive rate of the colloidal gold method (88.5%, 23/26) was significantly higher (χ2  = 59.182, p < 0.001) than that of the healthy control group (2.0%, 1/50). There was significant difference in IgG concentration at different time points (0-7 weeks) after negative nucleic acid conversion (χ2  = 14.034, p = 0.029). Serum IgG levels were significantly higher at weekly time points of 4-5 weeks (Z = -2.399, p = 0.016), 5-6 weeks (Z = -2.049, p = 0.040), and 6-7 weeks (Z = -2.197, p = 0.028) compared with 1-2 weeks after negative nucleic acid conversion. However, there was no significant difference (χ2  = 4.936, p = 0.552) in IgM concentration between time points tested (0-7 weeks) after negative nucleic acid conversion. The positive rates of IgM and IgG in asymptomatic patients (χ2  = 84.660, p < 0.001) were significantly higher than those in the healthy control group (χ2  = 9.201, p = 0.002) within 7 weeks of negative nucleic acid conversion. CONCLUSIONS: The IgG concentration in asymptomatic cases remained at a high level after nucleic acid turned negative. Nucleic acid detection combined with IgM and IgG antibody detection is an effective way to screen asymptomatic infections.

Extracellular Matrix Muscle Arm Development Defective Protein Cooperates with the One Immunoglobulin Domain Protein To Suppress Precocious Synaptic Remodeling.

Synaptic remodeling plays important roles in health and neural disorders. Although previous studies revealed that several transcriptional programs control synaptic remodeling in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, the molecular mechanisms of the dorsal D-type (DD) synaptic remodeling are poorly understood. Here we show that extracellular matrix molecule muscle arm development defective protein-4 (MADD-4) cooperates with the one immunoglobulin domain protein-1 (OIG-1) to defer precocious DD synaptic remodeling. Specifically, loss of MADD-4 exhibited the precocious DD synaptic remodeling. The long isoform MADD-4L is dynamically expressed while the short isoform MADD-4B is persistently expressed in DD neurons of L1 stage. In the unc-30 mutant lacking the Pitx-type homeodomain transcription factor UNC-30, the expression levels of both MADD-4B and -L isoforms were dramatically downregulated in DD neurons of the L1 stage. Our further data showed that MADD-4B and -L isoforms physically interact with OIG-1 and madd-4 acts in the oig-1 genetic pathway to modulate the DD synaptic remodeling. Our findings demonstrated that the extracellular matrix plays a novel role in synaptic plasticity.

Prevalence and associated factors of autism among children in central and eastern Inner Mongolia / 中国学校卫生

Objective@#To understand the prevalence and influencing factors of children with ASD in central and eastern Inner Mongolia, and to provide theoretical basis for disease prevention and prevalence of ASD.@*Methods@#Sixteen primary schools and kindergartens were selected from 5 cities in central and eastern Inner Mongolia through random cluster sampling. A total of 15 817 children aged 3-14 years were selected. Children who were positive using Clancy Autism Behavior Scale were further diagnosed according to the teacher s nomination form and the Autism Behavior Checklist, as well as the diagnostic criteria of the fifth edition of the American Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders by 2 professionals.@*Results@#The prevalence of ASD was 0.27% (42/15 817), with prevalence in urban areas (0.16%, 15/9 231) higher than that of rural areas (0.41%, 27/6 586) ( χ 2=8.89, P <0.01). Logistic regression analysis showed that maternal education and language development were negatively associated with ASD in urban children [ OR =0.29(95% CI =0.12-0.69) and 0.18(95% CI =0.05-0.60), P <0.05]. ASD in rural children were positively associated with enuresis and introverted family members [ OR =7.09(95% CI =1.60-32.27) and 8.63(95% CI =3.10- 24.01 ), P <0.05].@*Conclusion@#High prevalence of ASD is found in urban area of central and eastern Inner Mongolia. Unhealthy habits, neonatal diseases, low parental education, delayed language development and poor exercise performance are primary factors associated with ASD in both urban and rural areas.

Analysis of epidemic status and influencing factors of Mongolian children with autism in central and eastern Inner Mongolia / 中国学校卫生

Objective@#To understand the epidemic status and influencing factors of Mongolian children with ASD in central and eastern Inner Mongolia, so as to provide data support for formulating prevention and intervention strategies and improving the overall epidemiological investigation of ASD in Inner Mongolia.@*Methods@#Sixteen kindergartens and primary schools were selected from Chifeng City, Ulanqab City, Tongliao City, Hulunbuir City and Xilingol League cities in Inner Mongolia by means of random cluster sampling. Firstly, 7 108 children aged 3-14 were initially screened with the Kirschner Autism Behavior Scale(CABS), and then the children with ASD positive were given the autism behavior test scale (ABC). According to the diagnostic criteria, the professionals, including chief physicians and associate chief physicians from the major of child psychiatry, diagnosed ASD with the total score of ABC scale ≥62. Univariate and Logistic regression multivariate analysis were carried out among Mongolian children to find out the influencing factors related to the occurrence of Mongolian ASD in Inner Mongolia.@*Results@#The prevalence of Mongolian children was 0.37%. Mongolian ASD group and Mongolian normal children series in the household register, habitual twitch, hyperactivity, bite lips, families have extreme introverts, mothers age, father s cultural level, cultural degree of mother, father mother mild character, irritable, neonatal diseases, fetal gestational age distribution had statistical significance( χ 2/Z= 12.58 , 16.68, 14.93, 64.43, -3.76, -2.86, 4.57, 11.12, 12.33, 16.66, P <0.05).@*Conclusion@#Measures such as shaping a healthy growth environment, adjusting parental style, paying attention to the level of early childhood language development, and preventing neonatal diseases might lower the risk of ASD in children.

FOM: Fourth-order moment based causal direction identification on the heteroscedastic data.

Identification of the causal direction is a fundamental problem in many scientific research areas. The independence between the noise and the cause variable is a widely used assumption to identify the causal direction. However, such an independence assumption is usually violated due to heteroscedasticity of the real-world data. In this paper, we propose a new criterion for the causal direction identification which is robust to the heteroscedasticity of the data. In detail, the fourth-order moment of noise is proposed to measure the asymmetry between the cause and effect. A heteroscedastic Gaussian process regression-based estimation of the fourth-order moment is proposed accordingly. Under some commonly used assumptions of the causal mechanism, we theoretically show that the noise's fourth-order moment of the causal direction is smaller than that of the anti-causal direction. Experimental results on both simulated and real-world data illustrate the efficiency of the proposed approach.