For centuries, tuberculosis, which is a chronic infection caused by the bacillus Mycobacterium tuberculosis has remained a global health problem. The global burden of tuberculosis has increased, particularly in the Southern African region, mainly due to HIV, and inadequate health systems which has in turn given rise to emergent drug resistant tuberculosis (TB) strains. Bovine tuberculosis (BTB) has also emerged as a significant disease with the tendency for inter-species spread. The extent of interspecies BTB transmission both in urban and rural communities has not been adequately assessed. The phenomenon is of particular importance in rural communities where people share habitats with livestock and wildlife (particularly in areas near national parks and game reserves). Aerosol and oral intake are the major routes of transmission from diseased to healthy individuals, with health care workers often contracting infection nosocomially. Although TB control has increasingly been achieved in high-income countries, the disease, like other poverty-related infections, has continued to be a disaster in countries with low income economies. Transmission of infections occurs not only amongst humans but also between animals and humans (and occasionally vice versa) necessitating assessment of the extent of transmission at their interface. This review explores tuberculosis as a disease of humans which can cross-transmit between humans, livestock and wildlife. The review also addresses issues underlying the use of molecular biology, genetic sequencing and bioinformatics as t tools to understand the extent of inter-species cross-transmission of TB in a 'One Health' context.

Recently, the world has witnessed emergence of novel diseases such as avian influenza, HIV and AIDS, West Nile Virus and Ebola. The evolution of these pathogens has been facilitated mainly by a constantly evolving animal-human interface. Whilst infectious disease control was previously conceptualised as either public health or animal health related issues, the distinction between disciplinary foci have been blurred by multiple causal factors that clearly traverse traditional disciplinary divides. These multiple evolutionary pressures have included changes in land use, ecosystems, human-livestock-wildlife interactions and antibiotic use, representing novel routes for pathogen emergence. With the growing realisation that pathogens do not respect traditional epistemological divides, the 'One Health' initiative has emerged to advocate for closer collaboration across the health disciplines and has provided a new agenda for health education. Against this background, the One Health Analytical Epidemiology course was developed under the auspices of the Southern African Centre for Infectious Diseases Surveillance by staff from the University of Zambia with collaborators from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Royal Veterinary College in London. The course is aimed at equipping scientists with multidisciplinary skill sets to match the contemporary challenges of human, animal and zoonotic disease prevention and control. Epidemiology is an important discipline for both public and animal health. Therefore, this two-year programme has been developed to generate a cadre of epidemiologists with a broad understanding of disease control and prevention and will be able to conceptualise and design holistic programs for informing health and disease control policy decisions.

We have developed and optimized a multiplex polymerase chain reaction (mPCR) for simultaneous detection of Brucella, Salmonella and Leptospira with high sensitivity and specificity. Three pairs of oligonucleotide primers were designed to specifically amplify the targeted genes of Salmonella, Leptospira and Brucella species with sizes of 521, 408 and 223 bp, respectively. The mPCR did not produce any nonspecific amplification products when tested against 15 related species of bacteria. The sensitivity of the mPCR was 100 fg for Brucella and 1 pg for both Salmonella and Leptospira species. In the field application, kidney, liver and spleen were collected from wild rats and stray cats and examined by mPCR. The high specificity and sensitivity of this mPCR assay provide a valuable tool for diagnosis and for the simultaneous and rapid detection of three zoonotic bacteria that cause disease in both humans and animals. Therefore, this assay could be a useful alternative to the conventional method of culture and single PCR for the detection of each pathogen.

The study of pigs as a human disease model has been conducted in neuroscience. But the morphological development of pig brain by using MRI is rare. The purpose of this study is to determine whether cerebellum maintains consistent proportion to other brain regions in aging. Clinically healthy sixteen micropigs, 1, 2, 4, and 8 months were studied. The micropigs were anesthetized with isoflorane. MRI was acquired using a 0.3T system. To figure out development of ratio that allowed identification of normal cerebellum size, we measured the area of the cerebellum, brainstem, and forebrain from the mid-sagittal brain images on T1W. Mid-sagittal cross-sectional area (CSA) of total brain, forebrain, brainstem, and cerebellum were expressed as absolute values and also as percentages which were compared between the four age groups of micropigs for the purpose to define the effect of age on brain morphometry. It was found that there was not a significant difference in the percentage of the brain occupied by an individual region between groups although the absolute CSA differed significantly among age groups. There was no effect of age on the ratio between the cerebellum and total brain in 4 age groups. The normal size of cerebellum changes during brain development maintained a consistent ratio to other brain regions in normal micropigs. The ratio of CSA quantified on the mid-sagittal MR images offers a suitable method to detect presence of cerebellar anomalies in micropigs.

The present study was performed to evaluate the relationship between the neurotoxicity of acrylamide and the differential gene expression pattern in mice. Both locomotor test and rota-rod test showed that the group treated with higher than 30 mg/kg/day of acrylamide caused impaired motor activity in mice. Based on cDNA microarray analysis of mouse brain, myelin basic protein gene, kinesin family member 5B gene, and fibroblast growth factor (FGF) 1 and its receptor genes were down-regulated by acrylamide. The genes are known to be essential for neurofilament synthesis, axonal transport, and neuro-protection, respectively. Interestingly, both FGF 1 and its receptor genes were down-regulated. Genes involved in nucleic acid binding such as AU RNA binding protein/enoyl-coA hydratase, translation initiation factor (TIF) 2 alpha kinase 4, activating transcription factor 2, and U2AF 1 related sequence 1 genes were down-regulated. More interesting finding was that genes of both catalytic and regulatory subunit of protein phosphatases which are important for signal transduction pathways were down-regulated. Here, we propose that acrylamide induces neurotoxicity by regulation of genes associated with neurofilament synthesis, axonal transport, neuro-protection, and signal transduction pathways.

Actinobacillus (A.) pleuropneumoniae is the causative agent of pleuropneumonia which is one of the most important respiratory diseases in pigs worldwide. A total of 32 A. pleuropneumoniae isolates from diseased pigs during 2008 to 2010 were serotyped by polymerase chain reaction method. The susceptibility of the isolates to 13 antimicrobial agents were determined by disk diffusion test. In all the 32 isolates examined in this study, serotype 5 (16 isolates: 50%), 1 (7 isolates: 21.9%), 2 (5 isolates: 15.6%) and 12 (1 isolate: 3.1%) were found. Of all tested antimicrobial agents, resistance to oxytetracycline was found in 96.9% of isolates, followed by resistance to amikacin (81.2%), neomycin (68.7%), kanamycin (53.1%), penicillin (50.0%), gentamicin (43.7%), florfenicol (25.0%), ampicillin (18.7%), colistin (9.4%), trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, ceftiofur (8.3%), amoxicillin/clavulanic acid (3.1%) and enrofloxacin (0%). Oxytetracycline or florfenicol-resistant isolates were examined for the presence of resistance gene. Among the 31 oxytetracycline-resistant isolates, tetB, tetH and tetO genes were detected in 22 (71%), 8 (26%) and 1 (3%) isolates, respectively. The floR genes were detected in 8 (100%) of the 8 florfenicol-resistant A. pleuropneumoniae isolates.

Neurofascin, one of the members of L1CAM, has been known to have some important roles during the development of nerve fibers. In order to investigate the role of neurofascin associated with the development of nerve fibers in the rat sciatic nerve, the initial development of NF155 in the paranode was studied with immuno-fluorescence and immuno-electron microscopy. The result of the present study showed NF155 was not detected in the fetal sciatic nerve and began to reveal at the postnatal day 0 (P0) and dramatically increased by time lapse until postnatal day 7 (P7). NF155 was prominently localized in the axolemma of paranode and not detected in the central region of node of Ranvier. According to the present study, NF155 is likely to have some relationships with the formation of paranode and myelin sheath.

Endocrine test data from a 13-year old intact female Maltese was indicative of the presence of an insulinoma, however ultrasonography identified a pancreatic mass only after 10 months after the first admission. Following identification of both pancreatic tumor and hepatic metastasis on computed tomography (CT), surgical excision of the mass was attempted. However, total excision failed because of tumor adhesion to adjacent large vessels. The pancreatic mass was monitored over the next 25 months via ultrasonography, CT, and positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT). Histopathological and immunohistochemical data confirmed the diagnosis of insulinoma with hepatic metastasis.