A repeatable CT protocol for quantifying caudal vena cava growth in medium and large breed dogs.

Developmental malformations can cause stunted or abnormal growth and clinical disease in dogs. In humans, measurements of the inferior vena cava are used as methods for detecting abnormal growth trajectories. The objectives of this retrospective, multicenter, analytical, cross-sectional study were to develop a repeatable protocol to measure the caudal vena cava (CVC) and generate growth curves in medium and large-breed dogs during development. Contrast-enhanced CT DICOM images from 438 normal dogs, aged from 1 to 18 months, from five specific breeds were included. A "best guess" measurement protocol was created. Dogs were stratified into medium or large breed groups based on growth rate trajectories. Linear regression models and logarithmic trend lines were used to evaluate the CVC growth over time. The CVC measurements were analyzed from four anatomical regions: thorax, diaphragm, intra-hepatic, and renal. The thoracic segment produced the most repeatable measurements with the highest explanatory power. The CVC thoracic circumference ranged from 2.5 to 4.9 cm from 1 to 18 months of age. Medium and large breeds had similar CVC growth trajectories, with comparable estimated marginal means, however medium dogs reached 80% of predicted final CVC size approximately 4 weeks earlier than large breed dogs. This new protocol provides a standardized technique for evaluation of the CVC circumference over time using contrast-enhanced CT and is most repeatable when taken at the thoracic level. This approach could be adapted for other vessels to predict their growth trajectories, generating healthy reference population data for comparison against patients with vascular anomalies.

The impact of conformational sampling on first-principles calculations of vicinal COCH J-couplings in carbohydrates.

Dihedral angles in organic molecules and biomolecules are vital structural parameters that can be indirectly probed by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measurements of vicinal J-couplings. The empirical relations that map the measured couplings to dihedral angles are typically determined by fitting using static structural models, but this neglects the effects of thermal fluctuations at the finite temperature conditions under which NMR measurements are often taken. In this study, we calculate ensemble-averaged J-couplings for several structurally rigid carbohydrate derivatives using first-principles molecular dynamics simulations to sample the thermally accessible conformations around the minimum energy structure. Our results show that including thermal fluctuation effects significantly shifts the predicted couplings relative to single-point calculations at the energy minima, leading to improved agreement with experiments. This provides evidence that accounting for conformational sampling in first-principles calculations can improve the accuracy of NMR-based structure determination for structurally complex carbohydrates.

A combined NMR, MD and DFT conformational analysis of 9-O-acetyl sialic acid-containing GM3 ganglioside glycan and its 9-N-acetyl mimic.

O-Acetylation of carbohydrates such as sialic acids is common in nature, but its role is not clearly understood due to the lability of O-acetyl groups. We demonstrated previously that 9-acetamido-9-deoxy-N-acetylneuraminic acid (Neu5Ac9NAc) is a chemically and biologically stable mimic of the 9-O-acetyl-N-acetylneuraminic acid (Neu5,9Ac2) of the corresponding sialoglycans. Here, a systematic nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopic and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation study was undertaken for Neu5,9Ac2-containing GM3 ganglioside glycan (GM3-glycan) and its Neu5Ac9NAc analog. GM3-glycan with Neu5Ac as the non-O-acetyl form of Neu5,9Ac2 was used as a control. Complete 1H and 13C NMR chemical shift assignments, three-bond 1H-13C trans-glycosidic coupling constants (3JCH), accurate 1H-1H coupling constants (3JHH), nuclear Overhauser effects and hydrogen bonding detection were carried out. Results show that structural modification (O- or N-acetylation) on the C-9 of Neu5Ac in GM3 glycan does not cause significant conformational changes on either its glycosidic dihedral angles or its secondary structure. All structural differences are confined to the Neu5Ac glycerol chain, and minor temperature-dependent changes are seen in the aglycone portion. We also used Density Functional Theory (DFT) quantum mechanical calculations to improve currently used 3JHH Karplus relations. Furthermore, OH chemical shifts were assigned at -10°C and no evidence of an intramolecular hydrogen bond was observed. The results provide additional evidence regarding structural similarities between sialosides containing 9-N-acetylated and 9-O-acetylated Neu5Ac and support the opportunity of using 9-N-acetylated Neu5Ac as a stable mimic to study the biochemical role of 9-O-acetylated Neu5Ac.

Characterization of the invasiveness of monophasic and aphasic Salmonella Typhimurium strains in 1-day-old and point-of-lay chickens.

Egg-related outbreaks of salmonellosis are a significant health concern. Although Salmonella Enteritidis (SE) is the major egg-associated serotype, Salmonella Typhimurium (ST) can also infect the hen's reproductive tract and contaminate eggs. Recently, monophasic and aphasic variants of ST have been reported with increased frequency in Europe, and the isolation of these variants from laying flocks triggers the same legislative restrictions associated with biphasic ST strains. However, little is known about the colonization, invasiveness and persistence of monophasic and aphasic ST strains in laying hens. In this study, seven groups of 1-day-old and point-of-lay commercial Hy-line chicken layers were separately challenged with four different strains of monophasic ST, one aphasic ST, one biphasic ST and one egg-invasive SE strain. Tissue samples and cloacal swabs (point-of-lay chickens only) were collected at regular intervals post challenge in order to recover the Salmonella challenge strains. In 1-day-old chicks, only the aphasic ST strain and the SE strain were recovered after direct plating, suggesting that the number of salmonellas colonizing the tissues of the chicks infected with the other strains was likely to be low. Interestingly, all of the strains colonized well in the point-of-lay chickens, and there was no statistical difference in the overall number of positive samples or Salmonella counts between the seven strains. Salmonella was recovered from the point-of-lay birds to the end of the study (20 days after challenge). Monophasic and aphasic ST strains colonized point-of-lay birds as efficiently as biphasic ST and SE strains. Further studies are necessary to estimate the invasiveness of these strains in naturally-infected vaccinated laying hens, and to assess the impact of natural infection on egg contamination.

Molecular and phenotypic characterisation of extended spectrum ß-lactamase CTX-M Escherichia coli from farm animals in Great Britain.

The aim of this study was to characterise CTX-M Escherichia coli isolates from cattle, chickens and turkeys in Great Britain with respect to CTX-M sequence type, replicon type, ability to transfer plasmids, and for the presence of antibiotic resistance, fitness and virulence genes as determined by micro-arrays. The main CTX-M enzymes identified in E. coli from cattle, chicken and turkeys were 14 and 15, 1 and 15, and 1 and 14 respectively. Most isolates from different animal species transferred their plasmids with similar frequencies. The plasmid replicon type I1-λ was most common and seen in 23%, 95% and 50% of the isolates tested from cattle, chickens and turkeys respectively, whilst types F, FIA, FIB and K were common to isolates from cattle and turkeys only. Thirty-eight different antibiotic resistance genes were detected by micro-array including aad genes, blaCTX-M, blaTEM, cat genes dfrA, floR, strA, strB, sul, sul2 tetA and tetB. Thirty-nine different fitness and virulence genes were also detected by-micro-array, including espP, ireA, lpfA, mchF, prfB and tsh. Fisher exact test and hierarchical clustering of the antibiotic resistance and virulence gene results showed some genes were more commonly associated with isolates from chickens or cattle. This study provides a baseline of the characteristics of CTX-M E. coli isolates from animals in Great Britain and suggests that chicken and cattle CTX-M E. coli represent different populations.