Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen with high resistance to a wide variety of antimicrobials. The multidrug resistance pump MexAB-OprM promotes the efflux of various antibiotics, mostly when mutations accumulate in the transcriptional regulators MexR, NalC and NalD, thereby causing MexAB-OprM overexpression. In this work, a characterization of 50 P. aeruginosa isolates obtained from Brazilian agricultural soils to determine the reasons of their resistance to aztreonam was done. The majority of the isolates showed higher aztreonam resistance than wild-type strain by MIC method. DNA sequence analysis of mexR, nalC and nalD genes from 13 of these isolates showed the amino acid substitution in NalC for all tested isolates, just one mutation was detected in MexR and none in NalD. Furthermore, an increase in the level of mexA expression by real-time RT-PCR analysis in eight isolates harboring mutations in NalC was found. Although there was not a relationship between MIC of aztreonam and the level of mexA expression, on the other hand, the results presented here suggest that novel mutations in NalC, including Arg97-Gly and Ala186-Thr, are related to MexAB-OprM overexpression causing aztreonam resistance in P. aeruginosa environmental isolates.

Background Copy number variations (CNVs) are a major type of structural genomic variants that underlie genetic architecture and phenotypic variation of complex traits, not only in humans, but also in livestock animals. We identified CNVs along the chicken genome and analyzed their association with performance traits. Genome-wide CNVs were inferred from Affymetrix® high density SNP-chip data for a broiler population. CNVs were concatenated into segments and association analyses were performed with linear mixed models considering a genomic relationship matrix, for birth weight, body weight at 21, 35, 41 and 42 days, feed intake from 35 to 41 days, feed conversion ratio from 35 to 41 days and, body weight gain from 35 to 41 days of age. Results We identified 23,214 autosomal CNVs, merged into 5042 distinct CNV regions (CNVRs), covering 12.84% of the chicken autosomal genome. One significant CNV segment was associated with BWG on GGA3 (q-value = 0.00443); one significant CNV segment was associated with BW35 (q-value = 0.00571), BW41 (q-value = 0.00180) and BW42 (q-value = 0.00130) on GGA3, and one significant CNV segment was associated with BW on GGA5 (q-value = 0.00432). All significant CNV segments were verified by qPCR, and a validation rate of 92.59% was observed. These CNV segments are located nearby genes, such as KCNJ11, MyoD1 and SOX6, known to underlie growth and development. Moreover, gene-set analyses revealed terms linked with muscle physiology, cellular processes regulation and potassium channels. Conclusions Overall, this CNV-based GWAS study unravels potential candidate genes that may regulate performance traits in chickens. Our findings provide a foundation for future functional studies on the role of specific genes in regulating performance in chickens.

Summary A Derivative Free Restricted Maximum Likelihood (DFREML) algorithm was used with single trait and two traits animal models to estimate the variance and covariance components and thus, heritabilities and phenotypic, genetic and environmental correlations among nine different body measurements and weights of Brahman cattle raised in Mexico. The following measurements were considered: hip width, pin width, hip‐pin width, anterior height, posterior height, body length, thorax perimeter, scrotal circumference and weight. The analysis was based on a total of 1018 animals, born between 1992 and 1995, from 17 herds in the Mexican States of Chiapas, San Luis Potosi, Tabasco, Tamaulipas and Veracruz. The model included the following fixed effects: herd, year‐season of birth, sex, age of the animal and feed management. The only random effect was the direct additive genetic contribution of each animal. All fixed effects in the model were significant for all traits (p < 0.05). Estimated heritabilities for the traits were: hip width 0.57, pin width 0.32, hip‐pin width 0.41, anterior height 0.56, posterior height 0.54, body length 0.32, thorax perimeter 0.49, scrotal circumference 0.02 and weight 0.66. The magnitude of the heritabilities was medium to high, with the exception of scrotal circumference. The genetic correlations among all body measurements were consistently positive and high, ranging from 0.64 to 1.00. Although other measures showed higher genetic correlations with weight, thorax perimeter combines a high value (0.70) with ease and repeatability, making it a useful field measurement to estimate body weight when scales are not available.

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The use of pesticides to increase agricultural production can result in the contamination of the environment, causing changes in the genetic structure of organisms and in the loss of biodiversity. This practice is also inducing changes in the rainforest ecosystem. In this work, a Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from a preservation soil area of the Brazilian Amazon Forest, without usage of any pesticide, was evaluated for its potential to degrade atrazine. This isolate presented all responsible genes (atzA, atzB, atzC, atzD, atzE, and atzF) for atrazine mineralization and demonstrated capacity to use atrazine as a nitrogen source, having achieved a reduction of 44 % of the initial concentration of atrazine after 24 h. These results confirm gene dispersion and/or a possible contamination of the area with the herbicide, which reinforces global concern of the increase and intensive use of pesticides worldwide.