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Antioxidant supplementation in critical periods may be useful for improvement of piglet early viability and development. We have evaluated the effects of maternal perinatal diet inclusion of a high vitamin E level (VE, 100 mg all-rac-α-tocopheryl acetate /kg), hydroxytyrosol (HT, 1.5 mg/kg), or their combination (VEHT), in comparison to a control diet (C, 30 mg all-rac-α-tocopheryl acetate /kg), on the offspring homeostasis and metabolism, analysing the weaned piglets' adipose tissue transcriptome and adipocyte morphology. Diets were provided to pregnant Iberian sows (n = 48, 12 per treatment) from gestation day 85 to weaning (28 days postpartum) and 48 piglets (n = 12 per treatment) were sampled 5 days postweaning for dorsal subcutaneous adipose tissue analyses. RNA obtained from 6 animals for each diet was used for paired-end RNA sequencing. Results show that supplementation of sows' diet with either vitamin E or hydroxytyrosol had substantial effects on weaned piglet adipose transcriptome, with 664 and 587 genes being differentially expressed, in comparison to C, respectively (q-value<0.10, Fold Change>1.5). Genes upregulated in C were mainly involved in inflammatory and immune response, as well as oxidative stress, and relevant canonical pathways and upstream regulators involved in these processes were predicted as activated, such as TNF, IFNB or NFKB. Vitamin E, when supplemented alone at high dose, activated lipid biosynthesis functions, pathways and regulators, this finding being accompanied by increased adipocyte size. Results suggest an improved metabolic and antioxidant status of adipose tissue in animals born from sows supplemented with individual antioxidants, while the combined supplementation barely affected gene expression, with VEHT showing a prooxidant/proinflamatory functional profile similar to C animals. Different hypothesis are proposed to explain this unexpected result. Findings allow a deeper understanding of the processes taking place in adipose tissue of genetically fat animals and the role of antioxidants in the regulation of fat cells function., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Laviano et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Background: Disseminated tuberculosis is frequently associated with delayed diagnosis and a poorer prognosis., Objectives: To describe case series of disseminated TB and diagnosis delay in a low TB burden country during the COVID-19 period., Methodology: We consecutively included all patients with of disseminated TB reported from 2019 to 2021 in the reference hospital of the Northern Crown of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona. We collected socio-demographic information, clinical, laboratory and radiological findings., Results: We included all 30 patients reported during the study period-5, 9, and 16 in 2019, 2020, and 2021 respectively-20 (66.7%) of whom were male and whose mean age was 41 years. Twenty-five (83.3%) were of non-EU origin. The most frequent system involvement was central nervous system ( N  = 8; 26.7%) followed by visceral ( N  = 7; 23.3%), gastro-intestinal ( N  = 6, 20.0%), musculoskeletal ( N  = 5; 16.7%), and pulmonary ( N  = 4; 13.3%). Hypoalbuminemia and anemia were highly prevalent (72 and 77%). The median of diagnostic delay was 6.5 months (IQR 1.8-30), which was higher among women (36.0 vs. 3.5 months; p  = 0.002). Central nervous system involvement and pulmonary involvement were associated with diagnostic delay among women. We recorded 24 cured patients, two deaths, three patients with post-treatment sequelae, and one lost-to-follow up. We observed a clustering effect of patients in low-income neighborhoods ( p  < 0.001)., Conclusion: There was a substantial delay in the diagnosis of disseminated TB in our study region, which might impacted the prognosis with women affected more negatively. Our results suggest that an increase in the occurrence of disseminated TB set in motion by diagnosis delay may have been a secondary effect of the COVID-19 pandemic., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Roure, Vallès, Sopena, Benítez, Reynaga, Bracke, Loste, Mateu, Antuori, Baena, Portela, Llussà, Flamarich, Soldevila, Tenesa, Pérez, Plasencia, Bechini, Pedro-Botet, Clotet and Vilaplana.)

Introduction: Streptococcus suis (S. suis) is a human zoonotic pathogen of occupational origin, with infection acquired through contact with live pigs or pig meat. Pig farming is one of Catalonia's biggest industries and as a result this region of Spain has one of the highest density pig populations per km 2 . The aim of our study was to describe the infections caused by S. suis occurring in that area over a 9-year period. Materials and Methods: A retrospective, multi-center study was carried out by searching records from 15 hospitals in Catalonia for the period between 2010 and 2019. Results: Over the study period altogether nine cases of S. suis infection were identified in five hospitals, with five of these cases occurring in the 2018-2019 period. The mean age of patients was 48 ± 8.9 years and all of them were males. Five patients (55.6%) worked in pig farms. The most frequent manifestation of infection was meningitis (5 cases; 55.6%) followed by septic arthritis (3 cases; 33.3%). None of the patients died at 30 days; nonetheless, 4 developed hearing loss as a long-term complication. Conclusion: The most commonly identified S. suis infection was meningitis. Over 50% of the episodes occurred in the last 2 years and have affected pig farm workers. Further surveillance is needed in order to know its prevalence., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Díez de los Ríos, Reynaga, García-Gonzàlez, Càmara, Ardanuy, Cuquet, Quesada, Navarro, Vilamala, Párraga-Niño, Quero, Romero, Benítez, Altimiras and Pedro-Botet.)

Introduction: Methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) bacteraemia is a frequent condition, with high mortality rates. There is a growing interest in identifying new therapeutic regimens able to reduce therapeutic failure and mortality observed with the standard of care of beta-lactam monotherapy. In vitro and small-scale studies have found synergy between cloxacillin and fosfomycin against S. aureus . Our aim is to test the hypothesis that cloxacillin plus fosfomycin achieves higher treatment success than cloxacillin alone in patients with MSSA bacteraemia., Methods: We will perform a superiority, randomised, open-label, phase IV-III, two-armed parallel group (1:1) clinical trial at 20 Spanish tertiary hospitals. Adults (≥18 years) with isolation of MSSA from at least one blood culture ≤72 hours before inclusion with evidence of infection, will be randomly allocated to receive either cloxacillin 2 g/4-hour intravenous plus fosfomycin 3 g/6-hour intravenous or cloxacillin 2 g/4-hour intravenous alone for 7 days. After the first week, sequential treatment and total duration of antibiotic therapy will be determined according to clinical criteria by the attending physician.Primary endpoints: (1) Treatment success at day 7, a composite endpoint comprising all the following criteria: patient alive, stable or with improved quick-Sequential Organ Failure Assessment score, afebrile and with negative blood cultures for MSSA at day 7. (2) Treatment success at test of cure (TOC) visit: patient alive and no isolation of MSSA in blood culture or at another sterile site from day 8 until TOC (12 weeks after randomisation).We assume a rate of treatment success of 74% in the cloxacillin group. Accepting alpha risk of 0.05 and beta risk of 0.2 in a two-sided test, 183 subjects will be required in each of the control and experimental groups to obtain statistically significant difference of 12% (considered clinically significant)., Ethics and Dissemination: Ethical approval has been obtained from the Ethics Committee of Bellvitge University Hospital (AC069/18) and from the Spanish Medicines and Healthcare Product Regulatory Agency (AEMPS, AC069/18), and is valid for all participating centres under existing Spanish legislation. The results will be presented at international meetings and will be made available to patients and funders., Trial Registration Number: The protocol has been approved by AEMPS with the Trial Registration Number EudraCT 2018-001207-37. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03959345; Pre-results., Competing Interests: Competing interests: GH received a research grant from ERN (19PNJ145)., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2021. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

RNA-Seq technology is widely used in quantitative gene expression studies and identification of non-annotated transcripts. However this technology also can be used for polymorphism detection and RNA editing in transcribed regions in an efficient and cost-effective way. This study used SNP data from an RNA-Seq assay to identify genes and mutations underlying production trait variations in an experimental pig population. The hypothalamic and hepatic transcriptomes of nine extreme animals for growth and fatness from an (Iberian × Landrace) × Landrace backcross were analyzed by RNA-Seq methodology, and SNP calling was conducted. More than 125 000 single nucleotide variants (SNVs) were identified in each tissue, and 78% were considered to be potential SNPs, those SNVs segregating in the context of this study. Potential informative SNPs were detected by considering those showing a homozygous or heterozygous genotype in one extreme group and the alternative genotype in the other group. In this way, 4396 and 1862 informative SNPs were detected in hypothalamus and liver respectively. Out of the 32 SNPs selected for validation, 25 (80%) were confirmed as actual SNPs. Association analyses for growth, fatness and premium cut yields with 19 selected SNPs were carried out, and four potential causal genes (RETSAT, COPA, RNMT and PALMD) were identified. Interestingly, new RNA editing modifications were detected and validated for the NR3C1:g.102797 (ss1985401074) and ACSM2B:g.13374 (ss1985401075) positions and for the COG3:g3.4525 (ss1985401087) modification previously identified across vertebrates, which could lead to phenotypic variation and should be further investigated., (© 2016 Stichting International Foundation for Animal Genetics.)