No abstract

Ten young, male, entire small ruminants (seven kids and three lambs) with obstructive urolithiasis, which were presented within three days of complete blockage and before rupture of the urinary bladder and urethra, underwent a minimally invasive surgical tube cystotomy through the left paralumbar fossa. The catheter was placed in the bladder lumen through a metallic cannula and fixed to the skin with a stay suture. Surgery was performed with the animal standing (six cases) or in right lateral recumbency (four cases) on the day of presentation. All animals were discharged the same day. Eight animals urinated normally within a mean of seven days (range four to 10 days). One animal had a blockage of urine flow as a result of kinking of the catheter on the third postoperative day, and in another the catheter collapsed on the fourth postoperative day. These were managed by a second, conventional surgical tube cystotomy. No recurrence of the condition was noticed in any of the animals during a six-month follow-up period.

Exploration of novel candidates for vaccine development against Mycoplasma capricolum subspecies capripneumoniae (Mccp), the causative agent of contagious caprine pleuropneumonia (CCPP), has recently gained immense importance due to both the increased number of outbreaks and the alarming risk of transboundary spread of disease. Treatment by antibiotics as the only therapeutic strategy is not a viable option due to pathogen persistence, economic issues, and concerns of antibiotic resistance. Therefore, prophylactics or vaccines are becoming important under the current scenario. For quite some time inactivated, killed, or attenuated vaccines proved to be beneficial and provided good immunity up to a year. However, their adverse effects and requirement for larger doses led to the need for production of large quantities of Mccp. This is challenging because the required culture medium is costly and Mycoplasma growth is fastidious and slow. Furthermore, quality control is always an issue with such vaccines. Currently, novel candidate antigens including capsular polysaccharides (CPS), proteins, enzymes, and genes are being evaluated for potential use as vaccines. These have shown potential immunogenicity with promising results in eliciting protective immune responses. Being easy to produce, specific, effective and free from side effects, these novel vaccine candidates can revolutionize vaccination against CCPP. Use of novel proteomic approaches, including sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), two-dimensional gel electrophoresis, immunoblotting, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry, tandem mass spectroscopy, fast protein liquid chromatography (FPLC), bioinformatics, computerized simulation and genomic approaches, including multilocus sequence analysis, next-generation sequencing, basic local alignment search tool (BLAST), gene expression, and recombinant expression, will further enable recognition of ideal antigenic proteins and virulence genes with vaccination potential.

No abstract

Cortical acetylcholine (ACh) release and content were measured in non-anesthetized pretrigeminally sectioned or in Dial-anesthetized cats. In 28 pretrigerninally sectioned cats a very highly significant negative correlation between ACh content and output was found. In the same preparations, 15 mg/kg pentobarbital or electrolytic lesion in the rostral midbrain decreased ACh output and increased content. Atropine (1 mg/kg i.v. or 1 μg/ml topically) increased ACh output fourfold without significantly altering content. A larger dose of atropine (25 mg/kg i.v.) increased output ninefold and decreased ACh content. In Dial-anesthetized preparations, picrotoxin-induced ACh release was accompanied by a decrease in ACh content. Pretreatment with atropine in the same preparation resulted in an enhanced effect of picrotoxin on both output and content while atropine alone (1 mg/kg i.v.) raised ACh output without decreasing content. In pretrigerminally sectioned non-anesthetized preparations, hemicholinium-3 (HC-3) did not reduce ACh output significantly but reduced content. In the presence of atropine, HC-3 rapidly reduced the high output and decreased ACh content faster than without atropine. Cortical ACh content determined following cholinesterase inhibition (surplus ACh) did not follow changes in ACh output. It is concluded that cortical cholinergic nerve endings do not maintain constant ACh content at various output rates in contrast to peripheral cholinergic nerve endings. Atropine enhances ACh output probably both by increasing ACh synthesis and by blocking an inhibitory loop. The amount of ACh released per minute varies from 1/500 to 1/13 of the amount present depending on the activity of cholinergic fibers. ACh collected from the surface of the brain does not originate directly from surplus ACh.