Harmful Diseases Research Articles

MiR-138 inhibits epithelial-mesenchymal transition in silica-induced pulmonary fibrosis by regulating ZEB2

Silica dust is a common pollutant in the occupational environment, such as coal mines. Inhalation of silica dust can cause progressive pulmonary fibrosis and then silicosis. Silicosis is still one of the most harmful occupational diseases in the world, so the study of its pathogenesis is necessary for the treatment of silicosis. In this study, we constructed a mouse model of pulmonary fibrosis via intratracheal instillation of silica particles and identified the decreased expression of miR-138 in fibrotic lung tissues of mice. Moreover, the overexpression of miR-138 retarded the process of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in a mouse model of silica particles exposure and epithelial cells stimulated by silica particles. Further studies showed that ZEB2 was one of the potential targets of miR-138, and the up-regulation of miR-138 reduced ZEB2 levels in mouse lung tissues and in epithelial cells. We next found that the expression levels of ɑ-SMA and Vimentin were significantly increased and E-cadherin levels were decreased after transfection with miR-138 inhibitor in epithelial cells. However, these effects were abated by the knockdown of ZEB2. Consistently, the increased migration ability of epithelial cells by miR-138 inhibitor transfection was also reversed by the knockdown of ZEB2. Collectively, we revealed that miR-138 significantly targeted ZEB2, thus inhibited the EMT process and mitigated the development of pulmonary fibrosis. miR-138 may be a potential target for the treatment of pulmonary fibrosis.

Balanced Convolutional Neural Networks for Pneumoconiosis Detection.

Pneumoconiosis remains one of the most common and harmful occupational diseases in China, leading to huge economic losses to society with its high prevalence and costly treatment. Diagnosis of pneumoconiosis still strongly depends on the experience of radiologists, which affects rapid detection on large populations. Recent research focuses on computer-aided detection based on machine learning. These have achieved high accuracy, among which artificial neural network (ANN) shows excellent performance. However, due to imbalanced samples and lack of interpretability, wide utilization in clinical practice meets difficulty. To address these problems, we first establish a pneumoconiosis radiograph dataset, including both positive and negative samples. Second, deep convolutional diagnosis approaches are compared in pneumoconiosis detection, and a balanced training is adopted to promote recall. Comprehensive experiments conducted on this dataset demonstrate high accuracy (88.6%). Third, we explain diagnosis results by visualizing suspected opacities on pneumoconiosis radiographs, which could provide solid diagnostic reference for surgeons.

DANGEROUS FUNGAL DISEASE – PEAR MILDEW (GYMNOSPORANGIUM SABINAE (DICKS.) G. WINTER)

The article provides an analysis of the worldwide prevalence of a harmful disease on a pear – mildew, caused by the
 basidiomycete fungus Gymnosporangium sabinae (Dicks.) G. Winter, the taxonomy and biology of the pathogen is given.
 Preliminary data on disease-resistant samples of pears from the collection of RUE “Institute of Fruit-growing” (Belarus)
 are presented: Allegro, Victoria, Maria, Osoblyva, Smerichka, Souvenir, Shchedra, derived from Pyrgus communis L.;
 Augustovskaya rosa, Vernaya, Desertnaya Rossoshanskaya, Krasnobokaya, Podgoryanka, DU 20-3, Chuspan – from Pyrgus
 ussuriensis Maxim.; Chukhuang – from P. ussuriensis × Pyrgus ovoidea; Feeriya species derived from pear-leaved (sandy)
 Pyrgus pyrifolia (Burm.) Nakai.

The application of umbilical cord-derived MSCs in cardiovascular diseases.

Transplantation of stem cells is a promising, emerging treatment for cardiovascular diseases in the modern era. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) derived from the umbilical cord are one of the most promising cell sources because of their capacity for differentiation into cardiomyocytes, endothelial cells and vascular smooth muscle cells in vitro/in vivo. In addition, umbilical cord‐derived MSCs (UC‐MSCs) secrete many effective molecules regulating apoptosis, fibrosis and neovascularization. Another important and specific characteristic of UC‐MSCs is their low immunogenicity and immunomodulatory properties. However, the application of UC‐MSCs still faces some challenges, such as low survivability and tissue retention in a harmful disease environment. Gene engineering and pharmacological studies have been implemented to overcome these difficulties. In this review, we summarize the differentiation ability, secretion function, immunoregulatory properties and preclinical/clinical studies of UC‐MSCs, highlighting the advantages of UC‐MSCs for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases.

ПРИМЕНЕНИЕ ТЕХНОЛОГИЙ КОМПЬЮТЕРНОГО ЗРЕНИЯ ДЛЯ РАЗРАБОТКИ МОДЕЛИ РАСПОЗНАВАНИЯ ПОРАЖЕНИЙ КУЛЬТУРНЫХ РАСТЕНИЙ

In the Russian Federation, the agro-industrial complex is one of the leading sectors of the eco-nomy with a volume of domestic product of 4.5%. Russia owns 10 % of all arable land in the world. According to the data on the sown areas by crops in 2020, most of the agricultural area of Russia is occupied by wheat. The Russian Federation ranks third in the ranking of leading countries in the production of this type of grain crops, as well as leading positions in its export. Brown (leaf) and linear (stem) rust is the most harmful disease of grain crops. It is the reason for the sparseness of wheat crops and leads to a sharp decrease in yield. Therefore, one of the main tasks of farmers is to preserve the crop from diseases. The application of such areas of artificial intelligence as computer vision, machine learning and deep learning is able to cope with this task. These artificial intelligence technologies allow us to successfully solve applied problems of the agro-industrial complex using automated analysis of photographic materials. Aim. To consider the application of computer vision methods for the problem of classification of lesions of cultivated plants on the example of wheat. Materials and methods. The CGIAR Computer Vision for Crop Disease dataset for the crop disease recognition task is taken from the open source Kaggle. It is proposed to use an approach to the re-cognition of lesions of cultivated plants using the well-known neural network models ResNet50, DenseNet169, VGG16 and EfficientNet-B0. Neural network models receive images of wheat as in-put. The output of neural networks is the class of plant damage. To overcome the effect of overfit-ting neural networks, various regularization techniques are investigated. Results. The results of the classification quality, estimated by the software using the F1-score metric, which is the average harmonic between the Precision and Recall measures, are presented. Conclusion. As a result of the conducted research, it was found that the DenseNet model showed the best recognition accuracy us-ing a combination of transfer learning technology and DropOut and L2 regulation technologies to overcome the effect of retraining. The use of this approach allowed us to achieve a recognition ac-curacy of 91%.

Fast-Food Consumption among Children According to Shari'ah Perspective

Fast-food consumption among children is becoming increasingly worrying as it is associated with unhealthy nutrition and its long-term health effects. This concern is due to signs of obesity among children and numerous other harmful diseases linked to low-nutrition, high-fat, and salt diets. According to Li et al. (2020), children aged 12 to 15 years in Malaysia consume fast food twice a week on average. Different factors influence fast-food intake. These include a rise in advertising, the growing number of fast-food restaurants, and shifting current lifestyles, particularly food selection. Accordingly, this study focuses on fast-food consumption from the Syari'ah point of view. This research adopts the library research, analysed selected documents, and summarised the Syari'ah rulings on fast-food consumption among children. The results show that Syari'ah ruling on fast-food consumption relies on habits of intake, fast-food sources and the side-effects on children, whether they are permissible (mubah), abominable (makruh) or prohibited (haram).

Scientific support of small fruit growing in Russia and prospects for its development.

It is possible to achieve the target indices of the Russian Doctrine of Food Security (self-sufficiency in fruits and berries should be at least 60 %) by combining the competencies of science and business. At present, hundreds of varieties of small fruit crops are included in the State Register of Breeding Achievements Admitted for Use. Domestic breeders have obtained substantial results; the share of their assortment is 79-100 %. Federal Research Center of Horticulture (Moscow) (101 pcs.), Federal Altai Research Center of Agrobiotechnology (Barnaul) (85 pcs.), Michurin Federal Research Center (Michurinsk) (42 pcs.) are the leaders in the number of created hybrids and varieties. Over the past five years, 133 new breeding achievements of traditional small fruit crops have been submitted to the State variety testing, the originators of which are research institutions, private companies and individuals. The creation of modern seed-breeding (nursery-breeding) centers (SBC) on the basis of leading specialized research institutions is expected to be the solution to the problems of modern breeding and nursery breeding and to give impetus to the development of domestic small fruit growing. The research programs of the SBC involve an integrated approach that combines the knowledge and capabilities of researchers from different disciplines, the concentration of a complex analytical instrument base in the Centers of collective use, the using of biotechnological and molecular genetic research, along with traditional methods of breeding. An analysis of the achievements in small fruit growing in research institutions under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation revealed a huge scientific potential (genetic collections, hybrid funds) for creating competitive commercial varieties and technologies for their cultivation by establishing plantations with certified planting material in accordance with international requirements. Information from literary sources indicates that one of the main criteria for the value of varieties is resistance to harmful viral diseases. The cultivation of such varieties will reduce the cost of producing planting material for small fruit crops of the highest quality categories. In the near future, the most relevant areas for the breeding of small fruit crops will be: breeding for resistance to the most harmful viruses, winter hardiness, increased transportability and long-term post-harvest storage of fruits, suitability for mechanized cultivation, high content of biologically active substances.

New sources of powdery mildew resistance among winter bread wheat for adjusting the breeding immunological programs in the Agricultural Research Center “Donskoy”

Systematic work on the development of winter wheat varieties possessing resistance to a complex of the most harmful diseases has been carried out in the Agricultural Research Center “Donskoy” since the early 1970s. During this period, there has been created a large number of varieties that possess resistance to 3–4 diseases in conditions of infectious backgrounds of pathogens. Due to the analysis of varieties, there was identified a small number of varieties resistant to powdery mildew. Powdery mildew, caused by the fungus Blumeria graminis (DC) Speer, annually occurs on wheat, affecting all aboveground plant organs. Earlier the FSBSI “ARC “Donskoy” developed and widely cultivated the medium-resistant varieties ‘Tanais’ (2006), ‘Nakhodka’ (2015), ‘Etyud’, ‘Shef’, ‘Lilit’ (2016), ‘Volnitsa’ (2017), ‘Polina’, Yubiley Dona’ , ‘Podarok Krymu’ (2018), ‘Niva Dona’ (2019). In recent years, breeders have developed such varieties with high resistance to the pathogen as ‘Donskaya Step’ (2016), ‘Premiera’, ‘Univer’ (2018), ‘Priazovye’, ‘Zolotoy Kolos’ (2020). But the breeding process of varieties for resistance to powdery mildew is difficult, since it is explained by the small number of effective resistance genes and their sources. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to identify new sources of resistance to the pathogen. Under the conditions of artificial infection, during last 10 years there was conducted a testing of 302 varieties and samples of winter wheat of domestic and foreign breeding. There have not been identified immune varieties. There was identified a small percentage (15.2) of varieties that were resistant to the pathogen. Among the Russian varieties they were ‘L 3191 k-5-8’, ‘Akhmat’, ‘Alievich’, ‘Barier’, ‘Ulyasha’, ‘Knyaginya Olga’, which were not attacked by the disease over the years of testing. Among foreign varieties, the varieties ‘Bombus’, ‘Sailor’ (France), ‘Etana’, ‘Rotax’, ‘KVS-Emil’ (Germany), ‘Fidelius’ (Austria), ‘MV 09-04’ (Hungary) were identified as the best ones in their resistance to powdery mildew. All identified sources of resistance have been recommended in breeding programs for immunity.

Scientific support of small fruit growing in Russia and prospects for its development

It is possible to achieve the target indices of the Russian Doctrine of Food Security (self-sufficiency in fruits and berries should be at least 60 %) by combining the competencies of science and business. At present, hundreds of varieties of small fruit crops are included in the State Register of Breeding Achievements Admitted for Use. Domestic breeders have obtained substantial results; the share of their assortment is 79–100 %. Federal Research Center of Horticulture (Moscow) (101 pcs.), Federal Altai Research Center of Agrobiotechnology (Barnaul) (85 pcs.), Michurin Federal Research Center (Michurinsk) (42 pcs.) are the leaders in the number of created hybrids and varieties. Over the past five years, 133 new breeding achievements of traditional small fruit crops have been submitted to the State variety testing, the originators of which are research institutions, private companies and individuals. The creation of modern seed-breeding (nursery-breeding) centers (SBC) on the basis of leading specialized research institutions is expected to be the solution to the problems of modern breeding and nursery breeding and to give impetus to the development of domestic small fruit growing. The research programs of the SBC involve an integrated approach that combines the knowledge and capabilities of researchers from different disciplines, the concentration of a complex analytical instrument base in the Centers of collective use, the using of biotechnological and molecular genetic research, along with traditional methods of breeding. An analysis of the achievements in small fruit growing in research institutions under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation revealed a huge scientific potential (genetic collections, hybrid funds) for creating competitive commercial varieties and technologies for their cultivation by establishing plantations with certified planting material in accordance with international requirements. Information from literary sources indicates that one of the main criteria for the value of varieties is resistance to harmful viral diseases. The cultivation of such varieties will reduce the cost of producing planting material for small fruit crops of the highest quality categories. In the near future, the most relevant areas for the breeding of small fruit crops will be: breeding for resistance to the most harmful viruses, winter hardiness, increased transportability and long-term post-harvest storage of fruits, suitability for mechanized cultivation, high content of biologically active substances.

Myco- and microorganisms in the tuberculosis pathology of the common ash in Ukraine and interaction between them

Attention is focused on the fact that in recent years there has been epiphytotic dieback out of many species of forest woody plants both in Ukraine and in other countries of the world, which has a dynamic character and a tendency to grow. In the deep pathology of this phenomenon, phytopathogenic bacteria, which have high reproduction energy and can penetrate the plant both from the outside and cause a pathological process as vital obligates, were left without attention. It has been established that the most common and harmful disease of common ash in Ukraine is tuberculosis. The causative agent of the disease is the phytopathogenic bacterium Pseudomonas syringae pv. savastanoi Gard. affects both trunks, branches and shoots, and inflorescences of common ash. Bacteria Pseudomonas sp., Pseudomonas fluorescens Mig., Pseudomonas syringae Van., Erwinia herbicola Eh., Xanthomonas sp. were isolated from tuberculous pathology as a concomitant myco- and microbiota and micromycetes Cladosporium cladosporiodes Fres., Ulocladium botrytis Preus., Mycelia sterilia (dark), Mycelia sterilia (orange), Fusarium heterosporum Lin., Fusarium sp., W., Cylindrocarpon didymium Har., etc. The mechanism of systemic relationships of the components of myco- and microbiota of tuberculous pathology of common ash in the regulation (self-regulation) of pathogenicity and aggressiveness of vital obligates has been investigated. Attention is focused on the prospects and expediency of using the antagonistic properties of myco- and microorganisms and biological products based on them for the prevention and protection of tree plantations from bacterial pathogens. It is shown that the pathology of common ash is a multifaceted phenomenon with interrelated processes of an infectious and non-infectious nature. The need to distinguish between the etiology and pathogenesis of this negative phenomenon is indicated, that is, not to mix the factors that lead to the weakening of ordinary ash (factors catalyzing the disease) and the factors that cause its epiphytotic dieback. Keywords: bacteria, fungi, common ash, antagonism, Pseudomonas syringae pv. savastanoi.

Alzheimer's Disease: A Survey

Alzheimer's Diseases (AD) is one of the type of dementia. This is one of the harmful disease which can lead to death and yet there is no treatment. There is no current technique which is 100% accurate for the treatment of this disease. In recent years, Neuroimaging combined with machine learning techniques have been used for detection of Alzheimer's disease. Based on our survey we came across many methods like Convolution Neural Network (CNN) where in each brain area is been split into small three dimensional patches which acts as input samples for CNN. The other method used was Deep Neural Networks (DNN) where the brain MRI images are segmented to extract the brain chambers and then features are extracted from the segmented area. There are many such methods which can be used for detection of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Reducing Overuse of Proton Pump Inhibitors for Stress Ulcer Prophylaxis and Nonvariceal Gastrointestinal Bleeding in the Hospital: A Narrative Review and Implementation Guide.

Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are among the most commonly used medications in the world; however, these drugs carry the risk of patient harm, including acute and chronic kidney disease, Clostridium difficile infection, hypomagnesemia, and fractures. In the hospital setting, PPIs are overused for stress ulcer prophylaxis and gastrointestinal bleeding, and PPI use often continues after discharge. Numerous multifaceted interventions have demonstrated safe and effective reduction of PPI use in the inpatient setting. This narrative review and the resulting implementation guide summarize published interventions to reduce inappropriate PPI use and provide a strategy for quality improvement teams.

Effects of Telemedicine and mHealth on Systolic Blood Pressure Management in Stroke Patients: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.

BackgroundStroke is a common, harmful disease with high recurrence and mortality rates. Uncontrolled blood pressure is an important and changeable risk factor for stroke recurrence. Telemedicine and mobile health (mHealth) interventions may have the potential to facilitate the control of blood pressure among stroke survivors, but their effect has not been established.ObjectiveThis systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) was conducted to estimate the effects of telemedicine and mHealth interventions on the control of systolic blood pressure among stroke survivors.MethodsThe research literature published up to June 28, 2020, and consisting of RCTs related to telemedicine and mHealth interventions was searched in PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library. The Cochrane risk of bias tool (RoB 2.0) was used to evaluate the quality of the studies. The Cochran Q test and I2 statistic were used to assess heterogeneity. Data were meta-analyzed using a random-effects model. Mean difference (MD) with 95% CI and 95% prediction interval (PI) were calculated.ResultsIn total, 9 RCTs with a total sample size of 1583 stroke survivors met the inclusion criteria. Compared with the usual care, telemedicine and mHealth had a significantly greater impact on the control of systolic blood pressure (MD –5.49; 95% CI –7.87 to –3.10; P<.001; 95% PI –10.46 to –0.51). A subgroup analysis showed that the intervention mode of telephone plus SMS text messaging (MD –9.09; 95% CI –12.71 to –5.46; P<.001) or only telephone (MD –4.34; 95% CI –6.55 to –2.13; P<.001; 95% PI –7.24 to –1.45) had a greater impact on the control of systolic blood pressure than usual care. Among the stroke survivors with an intervention interval ≤1 week (MD –6.51; 95% CI –9.36 to –3.66; P<.001; 95% PI –12.91 to –0.10) or a baseline systolic blood pressure ≥140 mm Hg (MD –6.15; 95% CI –9.44 to –2.86; P<.001; 95% PI –13.55 to 1.26), the control of systolic blood pressure using telemedicine and mHealth was better than that of usual care.ConclusionsIn general, telemedicine and mHealth reduced the systolic blood pressure of stroke survivors by an average of 5.49 mm Hg compared with usual care. Telemedicine and mHealth are a relatively new intervention mode with potential applications for the control of systolic blood pressure among stroke survivors, especially those with hypertensive stroke.

Classification of COVID 19 in Chest CT Images using Convolutional Neural Network

The single-celled organisms called a virus are the root cause of many harmful diseases that affects both animals and humans. Coronavirus is one type of virus that is usually found in animals but if transmitted to humans can cause a wide range of respiratory diseases. One such disease caused is the COVID-19 diseases which caused a worldwide epidemic since its origin in 2019. The disease which is said to have originated in China had caused more than 252000 deaths worldwide in a few months. The test for the COVID-19 involves analysing the throat swab sample which may take days if not a week and by the time the results come the infection would have spread. Hence there is a need to improve the testing procedure for COVID-19. In this paper, we have come up with an automated Image Analysis technique to diagnose COVID-19 using the chest Computed Tomography images of the chest that uses a Convolutional Neural Network. This developed method has shown very good accuracy and efficiency in recognizing the COVID-19 infected CT images.

Developing a Prognostic Model to Predict Mortality in Patients with Acute Bacterial Meningitis.

Bacterial meningitis is one of the harmful and deadly infectious diseases, and any delay in its treatment will lead to death. In this paper, a prognostic model was developed to predict the risk of death amongst probable cases of bacterial meningitis. Our prognostic model was developed using a decision tree algorithm on the national meningitis registry of the Iranian Center for Disease and Prevention (ICDCP) containing 3,923 records of meningitis suspected cases in 2018-2019. The most important features have been selected for the model construction. This model can predict the mortality risk for the meningitis probable cases with 78% accuracy, 84% sensitivity, and 73% specificity. The identified variables in prognosis the death included age and CSF protein level. CSF protein level (mg/dl) <= 65 versus > 65 provided the first branch of our decision tree. The highest mortality risk (85.8%) was seen in the patients >65 CSF protein level with 30 years < of age. For the patients <=30 year of age with CSF protein level >137 (mg/dl), the mortality risk was 60%. The prognostic factors identified in the present study draw the attention of clinicians to provide early specific measures, such as the admission of patients with a higher risk of death to intensive care units (ICU). It could also provide a helpful risk score tool in decision-making in the early phases of admission in pandemics, decrease mortality rate and improve public health operations efficiently in infectious diseases.

An effective feature extraction method based on GDS for atrial fibrillation detection

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common and extremely harmful arrhythmia disease. Automatic detection of AF based on ECG helps accurate and timely detection of the condition. However, the existing AF detection methods are mostly based on complex signal transformation or precise waveform localization. This is a big challenge for complex, variable, and susceptible ECG signals. Therefore, we propose a simple feature extraction method based on gradient set (GDS) for AF detection. The method first calculates the GDS of the ECG segment and then calculates the statistical distribution feature and the information quantity feature of the GDS as the input of the classifier. Experiments on four databases include 146 subjects show that the feature extraction method for detecting AF proposed in this paper has the characteristics of simple calculation, noise tolerance, and high adaptability to all kinds of classifiers, and got the best performance on the DNN classifier we designed. Therefore, it is a good choice for feature extraction in AF detection.

Study of culture filtrates of anthracnose pathogen strains for use in in vitro flax breeding for pathogen resistance

The studies were carried out on the basis of the laboratory of breeding technologies of the Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution “Federal Scientific Center for Bast Crops” (Tver region) in 2018–2020. The aim of the research is to create in vitro new flax genotypes, resistant to anthracnose, one of the most harmful fungal diseases. As a result of the research, the composition of the culture filtrate of the anthracnose causative agent was clarified. It was revealed that the toxicity of the culture filtrates did not depend on the virulence of the strains used in the present studies — the cultural filtrates of strains 784 (highly virulent) and 780 (medium virulent) were more toxic (decay and death of primary roots on day 5 was observed in 67–88% grown seeds), strains 793 (strongly virulent) and 788 (weakly virulent) are less toxic (on the 5th day, decay and death of primary roots was noted in 9–15% of germinated seeds). It was found that morphogenic foci were formed more actively in genotypes, the morphogenic callus of which was transferred to a medium with a higher concentration of the culture filtrate; it was shown that in the second passage, when transferring morphogenic callus from a selective medium containing 40 ml/l of culture filtrate to a selective medium, containing also 40 ml/l of culture filtrate, as well as when transferring morphogenic callus from a selective medium containing 40 ml/l of culture filtrate, on a selective medium, containing 44 ml/l of culture filtrate, on the 14th day the number of formed morphogenic callus and green buds is significantly greater than when transferred from a selective medium, containing 40 ml/l of culture filtrate to a selective medium, containing 36 ml/l of culture filtrate. Viable regenerant plants were obtained and genotypes were isolated, which for three generations retained resistance to anthracnose at a level of 50–60%: NO-78 x Lenok, HJI-103-2 x Lenok, NL-40-1 x Lenok, NE -38 x Rosinka, NE-36 x Lenok, NE-17 x Lenok, HE-16-2 x Rosinka.

New data on the spread of the invasive species Dothistroma septosporum (Dorogin) M. Morelet in Belarus

Red band needle blight, or Dothistroma needle blight is one of the most common and harmful diseases of pine. The causative agents of the disease are pathogenic micromycetes Dothistroma septosporum (Dorogin) M. Morelet and Dothistroma pini Hulbary. Dothistroma needle blight was firstly detected in Belarus in 2012 year, but till now information about this disease in the republic is fragmentary. The article presents the results of a survey of different pine trees, carried out in the period 2016–2020 years in botanical and dendrological gardens, forest nurseries and mini-arboretums at forestry enterprises, urban stands, nurseries of decorative plants, garden centers, for the presence of Dothistroma needle blight. The species identification of the causative agent of the disease was carried out by mycological and molecular genetic methods. In this study, Dothistroma needle blight was revealed on individual trees of Pinus mugo, P. nigra and P. ponderosa in the stands of the Central Botanical Garden of the NAS of Belarus, the dendrological garden of the Glubokoe experimental forestry enterprise, in the nurseries of decorative plants in the Grodno and Minsk regions. In the collected samples of needles, the invasive species Dothistroma septosporum was identified. The frequency of occurrence of the pathogen was 4.8–7.2 %, the proportion of observation sites in which this disease was detected at 60 %. The detection of Dothistroma needle blight on pine trees, mainly on planting material imported from abroad, indicates a transboundary route of D. septosporum entering the country. Analysis of literature data indicates the potential danger of Dothistroma needle blight for pine stands in the republic, which in turn requires the organization of regular monitoring of the disease and the development of methods to limit the spread of D. septosporum in the republic.

Do people living in rural and urban locations experience differences in harm when admitted to hospital? A cross-sectional New Zealand general practice records review study

ObjectiveLittle is known about differences in hospital harm (injury, suffering, disability, disease or death arising from hospital care) when people from rural and urban locations require hospital care. This study...

Persistence of neutralizing antibody and its protective efficacy induced by a live attenuated tetravalent dengue vaccine, KD-382, in cynomolgus monkeys

An effective dengue vaccine should induce a long-lasting immune response against all four serotypes simultaneously with a minimum number of immunizations. Our live attenuated tetravalent dengue vaccine candidate, KD-382, was developed using a classical host range mutation strategy (no addition of artificial genetic modification). In our previous study, cynomolgus monkeys immunized with a single dose of KD-382 seroconverted to all four serotypes. However, it is important to determine if neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) induced by KD-382 can work as a long-lasting immune response to prevent dengue. In this study, a single dose of KD-382 induced a strong NAb response against all four serotypes in cynomolgus monkeys. We also confirmed that NAb titers against all four serotypes persist for at least five years, indicating its high potential as a dengue vaccine candidate. Next, we evaluated the effect of pre-existing dengue immunity on NAb responses induced by KD-382. We administered KD-382 to cynomolgus monkeys pre-administered one of the monovalent parental wild-type strains 60 days before vaccination. Regardless of the pre-immunized serotype, all the monkeys showed sufficient tetravalent NAb responses, which lasted for over two years. All the KD-382 vaccinated monkeys were then challenged with different parental wild-type viruses than that used for pre-administration; viral RNA in the serum was less than the lower limit of quantification, indicating complete protection against secondary heterologous dengue infection without any harmful disease enhancement. Consequently, KD-382 successfully induced a long-lasting and protective tetravalent NAb response in monkeys, suggesting that KD-382 is a promising vaccine candidate usable for both dengue seronegative and seropositive individuals.