The association of bacteriuria with survival and disease progression in cats with azotemic chronic kidney disease.

BACKGROUND: Cats with chronic kidney disease (CKD) have an increased prevalence of positive urine cultures (PUC). Limited information is available regarding the prognosis of cats with CKD and concurrent PUC. OBJECTIVE: To determine the association of PUC with survival time and disease progression in cats with CKD. ANIMALS: Medical records of 509 cats diagnosed with azotemic CKD between 1997 and 2018. METHODS: Cats were classified as having "no-PUC" or "PUC." The PUC cats were further classified as having 1 or multiple PUC, and also were classified based on the presence or absence of clinical signs of urinary tract infection (UTI). Progression of CKD was defined as a plasma creatinine concentration increase of ≥25% within 365 days of CKD diagnosis; PUC also must have occurred within this time frame. Survival time and frequency of CKD progression were compared between groups. RESULTS: No significant difference in survival time was found between cats with no-PUC and cats with any number of PUC (P = .91), or between cats with no-PUC, 1 PUC or multiple PUC (P = .37). Also, no significant difference was found in the frequency of CKD progression between PUC and no-PUC cats (P = .5), or among no-PUC, 1 PUC and multiple PUC cats (P = .22). When assessing cats with clinical signs of lower UTI, no significant difference was found in the frequency of CKD progression between cats with true UTI, subclinical bacteriuria or no-PUC (P = .8). CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL IMPORTANCE: When treated with antibiotics, PUC in cats with CKD do not affect disease progression or survival time.

Decreased expression of the satiety signal receptor CCKAR is responsible for increased growth and body weight during the domestication of chickens.

Animal domestication has resulted in changes in growth and size. It has been suggested that this may have involved selection for differences in appetite. Divergent growth between chickens selected for egg laying or meat production is one such example. The neurons expressing AGRP and POMC in the basal hypothalamus are important components of appetite regulation, as are the satiety feedback pathways that carry information from the intestine, including CCK and its receptor CCKAR (CCK1 receptor). Using 16 generations of a cross between a fast and a relatively slow growing strain of chicken has identified a region on chromosome 4 downstream of the CCKAR gene, which is responsible for up to a 19% difference in body weight at 12 wk of age. Animals possessing the high-growth haplotype at the locus have lower expression of mRNA and immunoreactive CCKAR in the brain, intestine, and exocrine organs, which is correlated with increased levels of orexigenic AGRP in the hypothalamus. Animals with the high-growth haplotype are resistant to the anorectic effect of exogenously administered CCK, suggesting that their satiety set point has been altered. Comparison with traditional breeds shows that the high-growth haplotype has been present in the founders of modern meat-type strains and may have been selected early in domestication. This is the first dissection of the physiological consequences of a genetic locus for a quantitative trait that alters appetite and gives us an insight into the domestication of animals. This will allow elucidation of how differences in appetite occur in birds and also mammals.