Newcastle disease virus (NDV) is the causative agent of a highly contagious and devastating Newcastle disease of poultry. A NDV (isolate DK1/07) was isolated from apparently healthy wild spot-billed ducks (Anas poecilorhyncha) captured at upper branch of the SapGyo Creek in Chungbuk province, Korea during early 2007. The DK1/07 isolate of minimum chicken embryo lethal dose killed all SPF chicken embryos within 60 h. The cleavage site of the F protein possessed the amino acid sequence ∨112R-R-Q-K-R-F∨117, which is a motif characteristic of virulent NDV strains. The F protein-based phylogenetic analysis revealed that the DK1/07 duck isolate was included in the cluster of genotype VIId and most closely related to recent NDV isolates obtained from chicken farms in Korea. Epidemiological importance of virulent NDV from wild duck is discussed.

Many neurotoxigenic clostridia are found in soil. Among animals, birds are especially susceptible to botulism, perhaps because they feed on insects, invertebrate carcasses, and decayed feeds contaminated with spores of Clostridium (C.) botulinum. C. botulinum type C is mainly involved in avian botulism. In the summer of 2005, death of a mute swan (cygnus olor) living in the pond of large bird cage was found in Seoul Grand Park Zoo. The birds presented presumptive clinical signs of botulism, such as ruffled hackle feathers, abnormal posture of the head, weakness, and flaccid paralysis. At that time, pond water in the breeding facilities was drained for 7 days, but there were still remained water containing sediment of feed and feces. Therefore, botulism was suspected and an experimentation were made to detect C. botulinum in the dead mute swan. Gross post-mortem findings of a mute swan showed jelly-like hemorrhagic contents in the intestine, sands and vegetations in the stomach. C. botulinum was isolated from the liver, small intestine and large intestine samples. Botulism was also confirmed by mouse inoculation test with the organ samples. With PCR, a gene encoding C. botulinum type C toxin was detected for the several organs of the mute swan died. These results suggested that death of mute swan was caused by C. botulinum type C.

Parallux, a solid-phase fluorescence immunoassay (SPFIA) developed for detection antibiotics residue in milk, was applied for analysis of antibiotics in muscle tissue of olive flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus), rockfish (Sebastes schlegeli), and red sea bream (Pagrus major). Fishes were dipped in neomycin 140 mg/ton water, the recommended therapeutic dose, for 24 h. Muscle samples were obtained on 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th day after drug treatment. The concentration of neomycin in muscle was determined using an internal standard (100 ppb as neomycin). The absorbance ratio of sample to internal standard (S/C) was employed as an index to determine the muscle residues in fishes. To investigate the recovery rate, the standard solutions were added to muscle samples to give final concentrations in muscle of 0.2 and 0.5 mg/ml. The recovery rates of all spiked samples were greater than 85% of the spiked value. Neomycin was detected in muscles of fishes treated after the 1st day of withdrawal period. On the 2nd day after drug treatment, all muscle samples showed negative reaction (S/C ration less-than or equal to 1.0). The present study showed that the SPFIA can be applied for predicting residues of neomycin in muscle tissues of farmed fishes.

Plasmodium spp. in domestic and wild birds are microscopic, intracellular parasitic protozoa within the blood cells and tissues cause avian malaria. A 17-month-old Magellan penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) with a clinical signs of anorexia, depression, and respiratory distress for 3 days was submitted to the Pathology Department of Veterinary Medicine, Cheju National University in October 2005. It was born and reared in the Jeju Island. Grossly, the liver was enlarged, pale and friable. The spleen was also enlarged with dark red coloration and friable. Histopathologically, the lesions in the liver were characterized by multifocal infiltration of macrophages and lymphocytes especially in perivascular regions. The schizonts of Plasmodium spp. contained up to 30 merozoites were found in numerous infiltrated mononuclear cells. Similarly, histiocytic cells were proliferated in red pulp of spleen and the schizonts were found in these cells. Numerous dark brown pigments were widely distributed in the liver and spleen. The result of the nested polymerase chain reaction clarified the causative agent of this case was Plasmodium spp.. This is the first report for the outbreak of avian malaria caused by Plasmodium spp. in a penguin that was born and reared in Jeju Island in Korea.

Antimicrobial drugs are widely used in poultry industry as growth promoters or to control infectious diseases. However, this practice is reported to have caused high resistance to antimicrobial drugs in normal chicken flora and pathogens. Antimicrobial resistance to Escherichia coli (E. coli) from chicken has been mainly reported in normal flora, but rare in pathogenic organism in Korea, recently. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate prevalence of antimicrobials resistance, transfer of R plasmid, and association between antimicrobial drug resistance and O serotype of 203 pathogenic E. coli from poultry in Korea during the period from April 2003 to December 2005. These isolate showed a high resistance to tetracycline (Tc, 92.6%), streptomycin (Sm. 81.8%), ampicillin (Ap, 77.3%), ciprofloxacin (Ci, 70.9%), sulfisoxazole (Su, 66.5%), and trimethoprim (Tp, 58.1%). Two hundred-one (99.0%) of the isolates were resistant to one or more drugs. They showed 57 different resistant patterns, and the most prevalent resistant pattern among them was Tc, Sm, Su, Ap, Tp, Ci, Na. Sixty-eight (33.8%) of the isolates transferred all or a part of their antimicrobial resistant pattern to the recipient strain by R plasmid. The most common antinicrobial resistant pattern was Tc, Sm, Su, Ap, Tp, Ci, Na in serotype O78, O88 and O15, respectively. These results exhibit high individual and multiple resistance to antimicrobials of pathogenic E. coli from poultry in Korea. They also suggest the needs for surveillance to monitor antimicrobial resistance in pathogenic bacteria that can be potentially transmitted to humans from food animals and to regulate the abuse of antimicrobials in food-producing animals in Korea.

A 10-year-old female Yorkshire terrier with the clinical signs of nasal swelling, epistaxis and nasal discharge was presented to the Veterinary Teaching Hospital in the Cheju National University. Abnormal nasal mass detected in physical examination and radiographic findings. After surgical excision, the sample of nasal mass was referred to Pathology Department of Veterinary Medicine. Grossly, the mass was soft, friable, and 2.5 × 4 cm in size. Histopathologically, the mass was composed of medium-sized non-keratinizing columnar to polyhedral cells arranged in anastomosing ribbon and large nest. It has complex in-folding of thick epithelial layers separated by fibrovascular septa. Tumor cells showed characteristic palisading arrangement of columnar cells, and perpendicularly distributed to the basement membrane. The cells had pale basophilic cytoplasm, oval nucleus and one or more nucleoli, and indistinct cellular border. Many tumor cell emboli were presented in lymphatics. Immunohistochemistry revealed that tumor cells were cytokeratic (CK) 19 and CK clone MNF116 positive and but CK7 and CK high molecular weight negative. Based on the gross, histopathologic, and immunohistochemical findings, the mass was diagnosed as transitional carcinoma in nasal cavity. In our best knowledge, this is the first report of transitional carcinoma originated from transitional zone of canine nasal cavity in Korea.

Although power analysis is of important tool research, investigators in veterinary medicine are unaware of the concepts of the statistical power. Two types of error occur in classical hypothesis testing and, those errors should be avoided, if possible. Since power is highly dependent on the sample size, whenever declaring non-statistically significant result they should consider the potential for committing a Type Ⅱ error in their studies, which refers to the probability of falsely stating that two treatments are equivalent despite true difference between them. Also, sample size determination is one of the most important tasks facing the researcher when planning a diagnostic study, and provides valuable information on the characteristics of a test performance. This type of analysis forms the basis for proper interpretation of test results. The aim of this article was to re-evaluate some selected studies on diagnostic test reported in the domestic veterinary publications to determine the power and necessary sample size for inequality testing to ensure the desired power. Power calculations were illustrated using real-life examples of comparison of a new test and a reference test for detecting antibodies of various animal diseases. Factors affecting to the power were also discussed.

A neutered male, 8-year-old, Pekingese, weighing 4.3 kg with a history of anorexia, sneezing, nasal discharge, and epistaxis for one month was referred. Soft tissue swelling around the nasal bone and small defects of the hard palate with a tiny round dark red mass were found on physical examination. The laboratory tests represented mild leukocytosis. On skull radiographs, soft tissue swelling and osteolytic change of the incisor bone, nasal bone, and maxilla were found. On computed tomography scan images, there was soft tissue attenuating opacity with calcified spots in the bilateral nasal cavities and frontal sinuses. Loss of nasal turbinate pattern and nasal septum was found. And destruction of the insicor bone, nasal bone, maxilla, hard palate, perpendicular palatine bone, and cribriform plate were identified. Nasal malignant melanoma was confirmed by nasal biopsy.

We investigated the potential of fucoidan for its ability to provide protection from gamma ray-induced damage. In our results, the fucoidan significantly improved the counts of endogenous colony forming unit to 9.5±1.5, from 5.5±2.5 compared with un-treated irradiated control group at 10 day after 7 Gy whole body irradiation. After 2 Gy irradiation, fucoidan treatment attenuated the percent of tail DNA of splenocytes, parameters of DNA damage, from 30.17±1.7% to 13.67±2.81% by comet assay and also accelerated the proliferation of splenocytes, compared with un-treated irradiated control group by ³H-thymidine incorporation assay. Furthermore, fucoidan decreased the number of apoptotic fragments per intestinal crypt by 31.8% at 1 days after 2 Gy irradiation. These results indicated that the fucoidan significantly improved the hematopoietic recovery, prevented the DNA damage in immune cells and enhanced their proliferation, which had been suppressed by ionizing radiation. in addition, fucoidan rescued intestinal cells from radiation-induced apoptosis. Thus, this study raises the possibility of using fucoidan as adjuvant therapeutic agent after radiotherapy.

This study was performed to evaluate repeated-dose oral toxicities of Flos lonicerae extract in Fischer 344/n rats. Flos lonicerae was administered orally to rats at dose levels of 0, 37, 111, 333, 1,000 and 2,000 mg/kg/day. Each group consisted of 10 rats of each gender. The Flos lonicerae extract was given once a day, 5 times a week, for 90 day repeatedly. This study was conducted in accordance with the Protocol of Korea National Toxicology Program and The Standards of Toxicity Study for Medicinal Products. In the present study, there were no toxicologically significant changes in mortality, clinical signs, body weight gains, ophthalmoscopy, urine analysis, hematology, serum biochemistry, necropsy findings, organ weights, histopathology, estrus cycle and sperm examination of all animals treated with Flos lonicerae extract. These results suggest that the oral no observed adverse-effect level of the test item, Flos lonicerae extract, in rats is higher than 2,000 mg/kg/day in both genders. The target organs were not established.