Brucellosis

Brucellosis is a disease, caused by the members of bacterial Brucella family, that mainly infects cattle, goats and sheep, leading to pregnancy loss, which has caused billions of dollars in economic losses for livestock producers worldwide. The disease can also jump from animals to humans, mainly through consumption of unpasteurized dairy products or inhaling the spores from the tissues of infected animals. While the disease can cause arthritis, inflammation of the heart and flu-like symptoms in humans, the bacteria can also enter the brain and cause neurobrucellosis, which can lead to long-term neurological complications, headaches, nausea, disorientation, swelling of the brain and sometimes death. Now, a new study has highlighted the protective power of both innate lymphoid cells and specific signaling proteins, known as interferons, in reducing the harmful neurological effects of Brucella. Brucellosis is a disease, caused by the members of bacterial Brucella family, that mainly infects cattle, goats and sheep, leading to pregnancy loss, which has caused billions of dollars in economic losses for livestock producers worldwide. The disease can also jump from animals to humans, mainly through consumption of unpasteurized dairy products or inhaling the spores from the tissues of infected animals. While the disease can cause arthritis, inflammation of the heart and flu-like symptoms in humans, the bacteria can also enter the brain and cause neurobrucellosis, which can lead to long-term neurological complications, headaches, nausea, disorientation, swelling of the brain and sometimes death. Now, a new study at the University of Missouri has highlighted the protective power of both innate lymphoid cells and specific signaling proteins, known as interferons, in reducing the harmful neurological effects of Brucella. The study, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health and used a mouse model, could potentially lead to future improvements in how the disease is both diagnosed and treated. "While Missouri has been considered 'Brucellosis free' since 2004 and the bacteria has almost been completely eradicated in both humans and domestic animals nationwide, there are still areas where it persists like within bison in Yellowstone National Park," said Charles Moley, a veterinarian and current doctoral student in the MU College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) who led the study in the lab of Jerod Skyberg, an associate professor in the CVM. "Worldwide, it is one of the most common bacterial infections that jumps from animals to humans, and there are estimates it impacts more than 10 million people each year, mainly in the Middle East and Mediterranean regions." Moley is a veterinary scientist in the Comparative Medicine Program, and his research can potentially inform the work of other researchers by better understanding how the disease impacts the brain. Given the new knowledge of the critical protective role played by innate lymphoid cells and interferons, the study could lead to more targeted therapy interventions for humans worldwide suffering from neurobrucellosis or more targeted diagnostic approaches for identifying the disease before neurological symptoms appear or worsen. "The work being done in MU's Laboratory for Infectious Disease Research improves the health of both animals and humans, which is gratifying," Moley said. "When I was recently visiting my grandparents in Arizona, I heard from a friend of my grandpa, who said his dad, who was a farmer, had died in the 1950s from brucellosis, and was thankful I was researching this topic. Stories like that motivate me, and I want to help."

In northern Yellowstone National Park, saplings of quaking aspen, an ecologically important tree in the American West, are being broken by a historically large bison herd, affecting the comeback of aspen from decades of over-browsing by elk. In northern Yellowstone National Park, saplings of quaking aspen, an ecologically important tree in the American West, are being broken by a historically large bison herd, affecting the comeback of aspen from decades of over-browsing by elk. Findings of the research led by Luke Painter of Oregon State University were published today in Ecology and Evolution. The study comes five years after Painter, who teaches ecology and conservation in the OSU College of Agricultural Sciences, published a paper in Ecosphere showing that wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone had been a catalyst for aspen recovery both outside and inside park boundaries. "I've studied the response of aspen in northern Yellowstone to the reduction in elk after the wolves were brought back and found that during this time, bison increased and have begun to affect aspen," Painter said. "Now we're showing strong evidence of a previously unreported behavior of bison bulls breaking aspen saplings." The saplings were tall enough to escape most browsing by elk and thus likely to grow into trees, but bison broke them off at a low height, he said. Other saplings were killed when bison scraped off the bark with their horns. Quaking aspen largely reproduces by root sprouts, a process known as suckering, and stands of aspen are often a single organism connected by the trees' common root system. Fire stimulates aspen reproduction from both roots and seeds. For much of the 20th century, Painter said, aspen sprouts were unable to grow into trees because they were eaten by elk during winter. But at the end of the century, when wolves were reintroduced and the numbers of other large predators such as grizzly bears and cougars increased, elk numbers in the northern part of Yellowstone went down, bringing relief to the aspen. "Some young aspen began growing into saplings -- young trees taller than 2 meters -- which was an indication they were no longer being consumed by elk and were likely to grow into mature trees," Painter said. "It was a trophic cascade that changed the Yellowstone ecosystem, creating conditions that could bring it closer to what it was historically, with more aspen, willow and beaver, which depend on these plants. But the tremendous increase in bison over the last two decades has added a new turn to the story." Bison have long been known to have strong effects on their environment, Painter said. Among those is removing and suppressing shrubs and trees by eating, trampling and breaking them -- and as bison numbers have greatly risen in northern Yellowstone in the last two decades, their effects on plants have also increased. In places where bison are present in large numbers, like Yellowstone's iconic Lamar Valley, they are hindering some aspen stands from replacing their dying trees, he said. The Yellowstone bison herd is divided into central and northern herds, and this study was in the range of the northern herd. The northern herd's numbers were generally less than 1,000 until 2005 and then increased, for reasons that aren't fully understood, to about 4,000 during the last decade, Painter said. Painter and OSU College of Forestry collaborators Robert Beschta and William Ripple examined a random sampling of plots in 87 randomly selected aspen stands, and 18% of saplings had been broken. They may resprout from their base, but the sapling height has been lost and new sprouts are vulnerable to being eaten by bison or other herbivores, the researchers note. Multiple lines of evidence support attributing the breakage to bison, Painter said. "Most broken saplings were in areas of high bison density and low elk density, and they were broken in summer when elk wouldn't have been foraging on them," he said. "Plus we directly observed bison breaking aspen saplings. The purpose of the behavior doesn't seem to be about accessing food, and we observed only bulls engaging in this behavior, so it may be related to displays of aggression." Painter noted that Yellowstone bison are managed under an agreement with the state of Montana that requires them to remain in or very near the park -- those that stray are killed, captured or hazed back into the park, in large part because they can carry bacteria that cause brucellosis, a threat to Montana's cattle industry. Elk also carry brucellosis and have passed it to cattle, but the same restrictions are not applied to them. Thus, unlike other wildlife bison are not allowed to disperse to other areas as their numbers and density increase. The conservation of bison in Yellowstone, whose numbers plummeted nationally from over-hunting in the 1800s, is a big success story, Painter noted -- and so is the recovery of aspen and other deciduous woody plants that began when the park's large predators made their comeback. "Thus, one important conservation goal is affecting another important conservation goal," he said. "Researchers are only beginning to understand how these conservation goals have overlapped and affected each other. We reported a piece of this complex puzzle, describing and quantifying one way that bison shape their habitat by suppressing trees." The study was supported in part by the National Science Foundation and the Ecosystem Restoration Research Fund of the Oregon State University Foundation.

LOS ANGELES--( BUSINESS WIRE )--A Washington Post investigation has revealed an ambitious effort by China to expand its biotechnology sector significantly, with sometimes controversial research, to keep up with (or overtake) the U.S. and other Western powers while failing to ensure adequate safety measures kept pace. AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) urges China or any nation conducting research with dangerous, highly-infectious pathogens to ensure the utmost security and oversight measures are implemented beforehand. “The news of China’s move to dramatically increase its biotech sector, including genetic engineering, without first ensuring ample security measures is beyond worrisome – it’s irresponsible and potentially endangers everyone worldwide,” said Dr. Adele Schwartz Benzaken, AHF Senior Global Medical Director. “We implore China to do the right thing by ensuring an adequate portion of the billions of dollars it’s putting into increased laboratories, research, and experimental medicines goes to commensurate security that will bolster defenses against serious lab accidents – like the leaked bacteria that cause brucellosis in 2019 in Lanzhou and potentially SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan the same year, which remains to be seen. The world cannot afford another pandemic unleashed upon it.” About AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) AIDS Healthcare Foundation , the largest global AIDS organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to over 1.7 million people in 45 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org , find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/aidshealth and follow us on Twitter: @aidshealthcare and Instagram: @aidshealthcare .