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During 2013-2019, Borrelia miyamotoi infection was detected in 19 US states. Infection rate was 0.5%-3.2%; of B. miyamotoi-positive ticks, 59.09% had concurrent infections. B. miyamotoi is homogeneous with 1 genotype from Ixodes scapularis ticks in northeastern and midwestern states and 1 from I. pacificus in western states.

Haemaphysalis longicornis Neumann, a vector of various pathogens with medical and veterinary importance, is a recent invasive species in the United States. Like many tick species, discerning H. longicornis from congeners can be a challenge. To overcome the difficulty of morphological identification, a Taqman quantitative real-time PCR based on the internal transcribed spacer gene (ITS2) was developed for quick and accurate identification of H. longicornis with a detection limit of as low as 19.8 copies. We also applied the assay to 76,004 archived ticks and found 37 ticks were H. longicornis. One H. longicornis was submitted from Warren, Somerset County, New Jersey in June 2015, 2 yr earlier than the initial report from the United States. None of these 37 H. longicornis was positive for Anaplasma phagocytophilum, Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato, B. miyamotoi, B. mayonii, Babesia microti, or Ehrlichia muris–like agent.

The “Thirteenth Five-Year Plan” National Tourism Public Service Plan promoted the revolution of public toilets in tourist attractions across the country. Although the size of the toilet is small, it affects each tourist's impression of a scenic spot and the review of service quality. This article selects three 5A-level scenic spots with large passenger traffic in Guangdong Province including Luo-Fu Mountain Scenic Spot in Huizhou, Dan-Xia Mountain Scenic Spot in Shaoguan, and Overseas Chinese Town East Resort in Shenzhen as cases. According to the questionnaires from tourists in the scenic area, we have found some problems in the current public toilets, such as imbalanced bathroom numbers of men and women, unclear toilet signs, difficulty in finding toilets, unsatisfactory toilet hygiene, etc. We proposed a series of constructive solutions for the toilet revolution of Guangdong and even the whole country as references.

As tick vector ranges expand and the number of tickborne disease cases rise, physicians, veterinarians, and the public are faced with diagnostic, treatment, and prevention challenges. Traditional methods of active surveillance (e.g., flagging) can be time-consuming, spatially limited, and costly, while passive surveillance can broadly monitor tick distributions and infection rates. However, laboratory testing can require service fees in addition to mailing and processing time, which can put a tick-bite victim outside the window of potential prophylactic options or under unnecessary antibiotic administration. We performed a retrospective analysis of a national photograph-based crowdsourced tick surveillance system to determine the accuracy of identifying ticks by photograph when compared to those same ticks identified by microscopy and molecular methods at a tick testing laboratory. Ticks identified by photograph were correct to species with an overall accuracy of 96.7% (CI: 0.9522, 0.9781; P < 0.001), while identification accuracy for Ixodes scapularis Say (Ixodida: Ixodidae), Amblyomma americanum Linnaeus (Ixodida: Ixodidae), and Dermacentor variabilis Say (Ixodida: Ixodidae), three ticks of medical importance, was 98.2% (Cohen’s kappa [κ] = 0.9575; 95% CI: 0.9698, 0.9897), 98.8% (κ = 0.9466, 95% CI: 0.9776, 0.9941), and 98.8% (κ = 0.9515, 95% CI: 0.9776, 0.9941), respectively. Fitted generalized linear models revealed that tick species and stage were the most significant predictive factors that contributed to correct photograph-based tick identifications. Neither engorgement, season, nor location of submission affected identification ability. These results provide strong support for the utility of photograph-based tick surveillance as a tool for risk assessment and monitoring among commonly encountered ticks of medical concern.

Protected from host immune attack and antibiotic penetration by their unique cell envelope, mycobacterial pathogens cause devastating human diseases such as tuberculosis. Seamless coordination of cell growth with cell envelope elongation at the pole maintains this barrier. Unraveling this spatiotemporal regulation is a potential strategy for controlling mycobacterial infections. Our biochemical analysis previously revealed two functionally distinct membrane fractions in Mycobacterium smegmatis cell lysates: plasma membrane tightly associated with the cell wall (PM-CW) and a distinct fraction of pure membrane free of cell wall components (PMf). To provide further insight into the functions of these membrane fractions, we took the approach of comparative proteomics and identified more than 300 proteins specifically associated with the PMf, including essential enzymes involved in cell envelope synthesis such as a mannosyltransferase, Ppm1, and a galactosyltransferase, GlfT2. Furthermore, comparative lipidomics revealed the distinct lipid composition of the PMf, with specific association of key cell envelope biosynthetic precursors. Live-imaging fluorescence microscopy visualized the PMf as patches of membrane spatially distinct from the PM-CW and notably enriched in the pole of the growing cells. Taken together, our study provides the basis for assigning the PMf as a spatiotemporally distinct and metabolically active membrane domain involved in cell envelope biogenesis.

Bacteria of the Corynebacterineae, a suborder of the Actinobacteria, comprise Mycobacterium, Corynebacterium, Nocardia, Rhodococcus and other genera. This suborder of high GC gram-positive bacteria includes a number of important human pathogens, such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Mycobacterium leprae and Corynebacterium diphtheriae, the causative agents of tuberculosis, leprosy and diphtheria, respectively. M. tuberculosis is the most medically significant species, a devastating human pathogen infecting around onethird of the entire human population and responsible for more than 1 million deaths annually. The Corynebacterineae also includes non-pathogenic species such as Mycobacterium smegmatis, a saprophytic species, and Corynebacterium glutamicum, an industrial workhorse for the production of amino acids and other useful compounds. These relatively fast-growing species serve as useful models to study metabolic processes essential to the growth and survival of the slow-growing pathogens.