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Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the circulation of Influenza D Virus – IDV (a new genus of the Orthomyxoviridae family) in cattle and swine in Piedmont (Cuneo province) by active and passive surveillance and by a retrospective study on swine archived samples collected in the same area in 2014-2015. Methods & Materials: According to risk-based criteria, 103 cattle and 44 pig farms (both fattening and reproduction) were selected for the sampling of nasal swabs, lungs and oral fluids. In each farm, 15 to 30 nasal swabs were collected from both healthy and symptomatic subjects. RNA extraction was performed with an automatic Maxwell® RCS 48 Promega extractor according to the manufacturer specifications. Oral fluid collection from swine was carried out using cotton ropes and RNA was then isolated by phenol-chloroform extraction from supernatant. As for lungs, a portion of approximately 25 mg of tissue was extracted in phenol-chloroform. Finally, the retrospective study was carried out on RNA extracts from pig nasal swabs and lungs collected in 2014-2015, as part of another research project. RNAs were amplified by One Step RT-PCR for Influenza D using the protocol designed on the region of the gene encoding the Pb1 protein. Results: Between 2018 and 2020 more than 600 samples were collected from 48 cattle farms and 35 pig farms. A total of 482 bovine nasal swabs, 44 bovine lungs, 105 swine oral fluids and 75 pig nasal swabs were processed for the identification of IDV RNA. In the retrospective study, 857 swine nasal swabs and 22 lungs from 43 farms were tested for IDV. Preliminary results showed 7 cattle farms (4 fattening, 3 reproduction/dairy ones) and 1 pig breeding farm positive for IDV, from the active surveillance and the retrospective study, respectively. Furthermore, viral isolation from positive samples on MDCK cells is ongoing. Conclusion: Our study confirms the presence of IDV in Piedmont region, in Cuneo province. Positivity found mainly in cattle and mostly during winter supports the hypothesis that cattle are the main reservoir of the virus and that winter is the season with the highest risk of infection.

Collecting genomics data across multiple heterogeneous populations (e.g., across different cancer types) has the potential to improve our understanding of disease. Despite sequencing advances, though, resources often remain a constraint when gathering data. So it would be useful for experimental design if experimenters with access to a pilot study could predict the number of new variants they might expect to find in a follow-up study: both the number of new variants shared between the populations and the total across the populations. While many authors have developed prediction methods for the single-population case, we show that these predictions can fare poorly across multiple populations that are heterogeneous. We prove that, surprisingly, a natural extension of a state-of-the-art single-population predictor to multiple populations fails for fundamental reasons. We provide the first predictor for the number of new shared variants and new total variants that can handle heterogeneity in multiple populations. We show that our proposed method works well empirically using real cancer and population genetics data.

Aujeszky Disease Virus (ADV) is a double-stranded DNA virus with a lipoprotein envelope. The natural hosts of the infection are Suidae, but the virus can infect many other mammals. The gold-standard method identified by the WOAH for the diagnosis of Aujeszky disease is the ELISA method. The objective of this study was to compare the performance of meat juice and oral fluid matrices using a commercial ELISA kit designed for serum. A total of 80 blood and oral fluid samples were collected from four pig farms selected for this study. Diaphragm muscle samples of about 100 g and blood samples were collected from 213 animals at the abattoir. These biological matrices were collected from the same animals and tested using a competitive ELISA kit to detect antibodies against ADV. The relative accuracy of the meat juice compared to that of the serum was 96.7% (95% CI: 93.3-98.7%), with 206 correct results out of 213. The relative accuracy of the oral fluid compared to that of the serum was 61.3% (95% CI: 49.7-71.9%), with 58 correct results out of 80. Meat juice has a better combination of sensitivity and specificity than oral fluid. The usage of meat juice in routine diagnostic examinations could be achieved after further investigations to optimize the procedure.

Swinepox virus (SWPV) is responsible for sporadic acute poxvirus infections in swine worldwide, causing a pathognomonic eruptive proliferative dermatitis. Beside direct and congenital transmission, the pig louse Haematopinus suis acts as a mechanical vector and favors virus infection through skin lesions. Infections are generally described in domestic pigs, while only a few cases have been reported in wild boars, in Austria and Germany. In September 2022, SWPV infection was suspected at post-mortem examination of a wild boar piglet with characteristic lesions in Liguria, Northwest Italy. The piglet was heavily parasitized by swine lice ( H. suis ). SWPV was then confirmed by histological and molecular analyses. Possible viral co-infections were also investigated (African swine fever virus, classical swine fever virus, parvovirus, circovirus, Aujeszky's disease virus and hepatitis E virus). This article describes gross and histopathologic features of SWPV infection, differential diagnosis, and potential vector-borne transmission to domestic pigs, presenting a brief review of the literature on the topic. SWPV infection is reported in wild boars in Italy for the first time. The finding of SWPV in a wild boar in an area with a very limited pig population may suggest the existence of a "wildlife cycle" in the area. Further investigations are needed to understand the real risk of transmission of SWPV to domestic pigs as well as the role of other arthropod vectors.

Bubaline herpesvirus 1 (BuHV-1), Bovine herpesvirus 1 (BoHV-1) and Bovine herpesvirus 5 (BoHV-5) are classified in the genus Varicellovirus , subfamily Alphaherpesvirinae . BoHV-1 is the causative agent of infectious bovine rhinotracheitis, BoHV-5 induces moderate disease in adult cattle while BuHV-1 has instead been associated with a decline in livestock production of water buffaloes. The aim of this study was to develop a qualitative PCR assay that allows the discrimination of BuHV-1, BoHV-1 and BoHV-5. The alignment of homologous genes identified specific nucleotide sequences of BuHV- 1, BoHV-1 and BoHV-5. The design of the primers and the optimization of the PCR assay were focused on the target sequences located on the portions of gD, gE and gG genes. This assay involved the use of three different PCR end-points: the PCR of a portion of the gD gene identified only the presence of BoHV-1; the PCR of a portion of the gE gene confirmed the presence of both BoHV-5 and BuHV-1; the PCR of a portion of the gG gene discriminated between BoHV-5 and BuHV-1, as the amplification product was observed only for BoHV-5. This qualitative PCR assay allowed the differentiation of BoHV-1 and BoHV-5 infections both in cattle and water buffaloes and heterologous BuHV-1 infections in bovine.

African swine fever (ASF) is responsible for important socio-economic effects in the global pig industry, especially for countries with large-scale piggery sectors. In January 2022, the African swine fever virus (ASFV) genotype II was identified in a wild boar population in mainland Italy (Piedmont region). This study describes the molecular characterization, by Sanger and next-generation sequencing (NGS), of the first index case 632/AL/2022 and of another isolate (2802/AL/2022) reported in the same month, in close proximity to the first, following multiple ASF outbreaks. Phylogenetic analysis based on the B646L gene and NGS clustered the isolates 632/AL/2022 and 2802/AL/2022 within the wide and most homogeneous p72 genotype II that includes viruses from European and Asian countries. The consensus sequence obtained from the ASFV 2802/AL/2022 isolate was 190,598 nucleotides in length and had a mean GC content of 38.38%. At the whole-genome level, ASF isolate 2802/AL/2022 showed a close genetic correlation with the other representative ASFV genotype II strains isolated between April 2007 and January 2022 from wild and domestic pigs in Eastern/Central European (EU) and Asian countries. CVR subtyping clustered the two Italian ASFV strains within the major CVR variant circulating since the first virus introduction in Georgia in 2007. Intergenic region I73R-I329L subtyping placed the Italian ASFV isolates within the variant identical to the strains frequently identified among wild boars and domestic pigs. Presently, given the high sequence similarity, it is impossible to trace the precise geographic origin of the virus at a country level. Moreover, the full-length sequences available in the NCBI are not completely representative of all affected territories.

Background: Hepatitis E Virus (HEV) is recently considered an emerging public health concern. HEV genotypes 1 and 2 are widely distributed and pathogenic only for humans. In contrast, HEV, genotypes 3 and 4 are observed in swine, deer, wild boars and rabbits and can also be transmitted to humans. The presence of HEV in the liver, muscle, faeces, blood, and bile was detected by real-time RT-PCR in 156 pigs belonging to twenty different farms, ranging from 1 to 8 months of age. The phylogenetic analysis was performed on the viral strain present in the positive biological matrix, with the lowest Ct. HEV-IgG and HEV-IgM in the sera were analysed by two different ELISA kits., Results: Twenty-one pigs, i.e., 13.46% of them (21/156, 95% CI: 8.53%-19.84%), tested positive for HEV in at least one biological matrix by real-time RT-PCR, while phylogenetic analysis revealed the presence of HEV subtypes 3f and 3c. Pig serums analysed by ELISA showed an overall prevalence of 26.92% (42/156, 95% CI: 20.14%-34.60%) for HEV-IgG, whereas the 28.95% (33/114, 95% CI: 20.84%-38.19%) of them tested negative resulted positive for the HEV-IgM., Conclusions: The faeces are the biological matrix with the highest probability of detecting HEV. The best concordance value (Kappa Kohen index) and the highest positive correlation (Phi index) were observed for the correlation between bile and liver, even when the number of positive liver samples was lower than the positive bile samples. This finding may suggest that a higher probability of HEV occurs in the bile, when the virus is present in the liver, during the stages of infection. Finally, the presence of HEV in muscle was observed in 11 pigs, usually used for the preparation of some dishes, typical of the Italian tradition, based on raw or undercooked meat. Therefore, their consumption is a possible source of infection for final consumer., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Plastic is a polymer extremely resistant to degradation that can remain for up to hundreds or thousands of years, leading to the accumulation of massive amounts of plastic waste throughout the planet's ecosystems. Due to exposure to various environmental factors, plastic breaks down into smaller particles named microplastics (1-5000 μm) and nanoplastics (<1 μm). Microplastics (MPs) are ubiquitous pollutants but, still, little is known about their effects on human and animal health. Herein, our aim is to investigate cytotoxicity, oxidative stress, inflammation and correlated gene modulation following exposure to polystyrene microplastics (PS-MPs) in HRT-18 and CMT-93 epithelial cell lines. After 6, 24 and 48 h PS-MPs treatment, cell viability (MTT) and oxidative stress (SOD) assays were performed; subsequently, expression changes and cytokines release were investigated by Real-Time PCR and Magnetic-beads panel Multiplex Assay, respectively. For each exposure time, a significantly increased cytotoxicity was observed in both cell lines, whereas SOD activity increased only in CMT-93 cells. Furthermore, Magnetic-beads Multiplex Assay revealed an increased release of IL-8 in HRT-18 cells' medium, also confirmed by gene expression analysis. Results obtained suggest the presence of a pro-inflammatory pattern induced by PS-MPs treatment that could be related to the observed increase in cytotoxicity.

There is a growing interest in the estimation of the number of unseen features, mostly driven by biological applications. A recent work brought out a peculiar property of the popular completely random measures (CRMs) as prior models in Bayesian nonparametric (BNP) inference for the unseen-features problem: for fixed prior's parameters, they all lead to a Poisson posterior distribution for the number of unseen features, which depends on the sampling information only through the sample size. CRMs are thus not a flexible prior model for the unseen-features problem and, while the Poisson posterior distribution may be appealing for analytical tractability and ease of interpretability, its independence from the sampling information makes the BNP approach a questionable oversimplification, with posterior inferences being completely determined by the estimation of unknown prior's parameters. In this article, we introduce the stable-Beta scaled process (SB-SP) prior, and we show that it allows to enrich the posterior distribution of the number of unseen features arising under CRM priors, while maintaining its analytical tractability and interpretability. That is, the SB-SP prior leads to a negative Binomial posterior distribution, which depends on the sampling information through the sample size and the number of distinct features, with corresponding estimates being simple, linear in the sampling information and computationally efficient. We apply our BNP approach to synthetic data and to real cancer genomic data, showing that: (i) it outperforms the most popular parametric and nonparametric competitors in terms of estimation accuracy; (ii) it provides improved coverage for the estimation with respect to a BNP approach under CRM priors. Supplementary materials for this article are available online., (© 2022 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.)

The toxicity of water samples from water distribution plants needs to be investigated further. Indeed, studies on the pro-oxidant effects driven by tap water are very limited. In this study, the water quality, pro-oxidant effects, and potential health risks driven by exposure to groundwater samples from two water plants (sites A and B) located in Northwestern Italy were investigated in a multi-level system. Physicochemical parameters and the absence of pathogens, cyanotoxins, and endocrine active substances indicated a good water quality for both sites. The 25 metals analyzed were found under the limit of quantification or compliant with the maximum limits set by national legislation. Water samples were concentrated by the solid-phase extraction system in order to assess the aquatic toxicity on Epithelioma papulosum cyprini (EPC) cell line. Levels of superoxide dismutase, catalase, glutathione peroxidase, glutathione S-transferase, and glutathione reductase were evaluated through the Integrated Biomarkers Response (IBRv2) index. EPC cell line was found a sensible model for assessing the antioxidant responses driven by both water concentrates. A similar antioxidant response was shown by plots and IBRv2 suggesting a muted risk for the two sampling sites.