Prevalence, Risk Factors, Pathophysiology, Potential Biomarkers and Management of Feline Idiopathic Cystitis: An Update Review.

Feline idiopathic cystitis is a widespread disease in small animal clinics, which mainly presents with urinary signs like dysuria, stranguria, hematuria, pollakiuria, and periuria. The etiopathogenesis of the disease may involve interactions between the environmental stressors, neuroendocrine system and bladder of affected cats. Diagnostic biomarkers have not been tested in clinical studies though they are theoretically feasible, and since the clinical signs of the disease assemble those of other feline lower urinary diseases, its diagnosis is a procedure of exclusion. The primary treatment of the disease is long-term multimodal environmental modification (or enrichment) while anti-anxiety drugs and nutritional supplements are recommended for chronic recurrent cases. Still, many medicines need to be evaluated for their efficacy and safety. This review aims to provide readers with a comprehensive understanding of feline idiopathic cystitis by summarizing and updating studies concerning the prevalence, risk factors, etiological hypotheses, diagnostic procedures, possible treatments, and prognosis of the disease.

Evaluation of pentaerythritol-based and trimethylolpropane-based cationic lipidic materials for gene delivery.

The chemical and physical structure of cationic liposomes pays an important effect on their gene transfection efficiency. Investigation on the structure-function relationship of cationic liposomes will guide the design of novel cationic liposomes with high transfection efficiency and biosafety. In this paper, two novel series of lipids based on the backbone of pentaerythritol and trimethylolpropane were discovered, and their gene transfection efficiencies were assayed in vitro. The four lipids 8c, 9c, 14b, and 15b, exhibited much better transfection efficiency in the HEK293 cell lines compared with Lipo2000, lipid 9c also showed good transfection efficiency in the SW480 cell lines. And the structure-efficiency relationship revealed that a hydroxyethyl polar head group boosted transfer potency in trimethylolpropane-type lipids, but reduced in pentaerythritol-type lipids.

Long non-coding RNAs are associated with Seneca Valley virus infection.

Sporadic outbreaks of Seneca Valley virus (SVV) have been detected in recent years causing huge economic losses to the pig industry. SVV infection can lead to redness and fever of the mouth, nose or hoof wall, ulcerative injury and inflammation in pigs. Although long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been shown to play an important role in antiviral and inflammatory regulation, how lncRNAs regulate and induce SVV infection inflammation remains unclear. Here, we found the differential expression of 1332 lncRNAs and 3299 mRNAs in SVV-infected ST cells using RNA-seq. Functional annotation analysis revealed that regulated transcripts are mainly involved in signaling pathways related to host immunity and inflammatory responses. We identified lnc-MSTRG.18940.1 as an important immune regulator in SVV infection. Lnc-MSTRG.18940.1 silencing specifically inhibited SVV replication and the production of inflammatory factors TNF-α, IL-1, IL-6, and IL-8. Our findings aid to a better understanding of host responses to SVV infection and provide new directions for understanding the potential association between lncRNAs and SVV pathogenesis.

Emergence and adaptive evolution of Nipah virus.

Since its first emergence in 1998 in Malaysia, Nipah virus (NiV) has become a great threat to domestic animals and humans. Sporadic outbreaks associated with human-to-human transmission caused hundreds of human fatalities. Here, we collected all available NiV sequences and combined phylogenetics, molecular selection, structural biology and receptor analysis to study the emergence and adaptive evolution of NiV. NiV can be divided into two main lineages including the Bangladesh and Malaysia lineages. We formly confirmed a significant association with geography which is probably the result of long-term evolution of NiV in local bat population. The two NiV lineages differ in many amino acids; one change in the fusion protein might be involved in its activation via binding to the G protein. We also identified adaptive and positively selected sites in many viral proteins. In the receptor-binding G protein, we found that sites 384, 386 and especially 498 of G protein might modulate receptor-binding affinity and thus contribute to the host jump from bats to humans via the adaption to bind the human ephrin-B2 receptor. We also found that site 1645 in the connector domain of L was positive selected and involved in adaptive evolution; this site might add methyl groups to the cap structure present at the 5'-end of the RNA and thus modulate its activity. This study provides insight to assist the design of early detection methods for NiV to assess its epidemic potential in humans.

Design, synthesis and in vitro evaluation of d-glucose-based cationic glycolipids for gene delivery.

A cationic lipid consists of a hydrophilic headgroup, backbone and hydrophobic tails which have an immense influence on the transfection efficiency of the lipid. In this paper, two novel series of cationic cyclic glycolipids with a quaternary ammonium headgroup and different-length hydrophobic tails (dodecyl, tetradecyl, hexadecyl) have been designed and synthesized for gene delivery. One contains lipids 1-3 with two hydrophobic alkyl chains linked to the glucose ring directly via an ether link. The other contains lipids 4-6 with two hydrophobic chains on the positively charged nitrogen atoms. All of the lipids were characterized for their ability to bind to DNA, size, ζ-potential, and toxicity. Atomic force microscopy showed that the lipids and DNA-lipid complexes were sphere-like forms. The lipids were used to transfer enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP-C3) to HEK293 cells without a helper lipid, the results indicated that lipids 4-6 have better transfection efficiency, in particular lipids 5-6 have similar or better efficiency, compared with the commercial transfection reagent lipofectamine 2000.