Bovine tuberculosis in Doñana Biosphere Reserve: the role of wild ungulates as disease reservoirs in the last Iberian lynx strongholds.

Doñana National Park (DNP) in southern Spain is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve where commercial hunting and wildlife artificial feeding do not take place and traditional cattle husbandry still exists. Herein, we hypothesized that Mycobacterium bovis infection prevalence in wild ungulates will depend on host ecology and that variation in prevalence will reflect variation in the interaction between hosts and environmental risk factors. Cattle bTB reactor rates increased in DNP despite compulsory testing and culling of infected animals. In this study, 124 European wild boar, 95 red deer, and 97 fallow deer were sampled from April 2006 to April 2007 and analyzed for M. bovis infection. Modelling and GIS were used to identify risk factors and intra and inter-species relationships. Infection with M. bovis was confirmed in 65 (52.4%) wild boar, 26 (27.4%) red deer and 18 (18.5%) fallow deer. In the absence of cattle, wild boar M. bovis prevalence reached 92.3% in the northern third of DNP. Wild boar showed more than twice prevalence than that in deer (p<0.001). Modelling revealed that M. bovis prevalence decreased from North to South in wild boar (p<0.001) and red deer (p<0.01), whereas no spatial pattern was evidenced for fallow deer. Infection risk in wild boar was dependent on wild boar M. bovis prevalence in the buffer area containing interacting individuals (p<0.01). The prevalence recorded in this study is among the highest reported in wildlife. Remarkably, this high prevalence occurs in the absence of wildlife artificial feeding, suggesting that a feeding ban alone would have a limited effect on wildlife M. bovis prevalence. In DNP, M. bovis transmission may occur predominantly at the intra-species level due to ecological, behavioural and epidemiological factors. The results of this study allow inferring conclusions on epidemiological bTB risk factors in Mediterranean habitats that are not managed for hunting purposes. Our results support the need to consider wildlife species for the control of bTB in cattle and strongly suggest that bTB may affect animal welfare and conservation.

Angiogenesis-related gene expression profile with independent prognostic value in advanced ovarian carcinoma.

BACKGROUND Ovarian carcinoma is the most important cause of gynecological cancer-related mortality in Western societies. Despite the improved median overall survival in patients receiving chemotherapy regimens such as paclitaxel and carboplatin combination, relapse still occurs in most advanced diseased patients. Increased angiogenesis is associated with rapid recurrence and decreased survival in ovarian cancer. This study was planned to identify an angiogenesis-related gene expression profile with prognostic value in advanced ovarian carcinoma patients. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS RNAs were collected from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded samples of 61 patients with III/IV FIGO stage ovarian cancer who underwent surgical cytoreduction and received a carboplatin plus paclitaxel regimen. Expression levels of 82 angiogenesis related genes were measured by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction using TaqMan low-density arrays. A 34-gene-profile which was able to predict the overall survival of ovarian carcinoma patients was identified. After a leave-one-out cross validation, the profile distinguished two groups of patients with different outcomes. Median overall survival and progression-free survival for the high risk group was 28.3 and 15.0 months, respectively, and was not reached by patients in the low risk group at the end of follow-up. Moreover, the profile maintained an independent prognostic value in the multivariate analysis. The hazard ratio for death was 2.3 (95% CI, 1.5 to 3.2; p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE It is possible to generate a prognostic model for advanced ovarian carcinoma based on angiogenesis-related genes using formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded samples. The present results are consistent with the increasing weight of angiogenesis genes in the prognosis of ovarian carcinoma.

Pediatric parapneumonic empyema, Spain

Pediatric parapneumonic empyema (PPE) has been increasing in several countries including Spain. Streptococcus pneumoniae is a major PPE pathogen; however, antimicrobial pretreatment before pleural fluid (PF) sampling frequently results in negative diagnostic cultures, thus greatly underestimating the contribution of pneumococci, especially pneumococci susceptible to antimicrobial agents, to PPE. The study aim was to identify the serotypes and genotypes that cause PPE by using molecular diagnostics and relate these data to disease incidence and severity. A total of 208 children with PPE were prospectively enrolled; blood and PF samples were collected. Pneumococci were detected in 79% of culture-positive and 84% of culture-negative samples. All pneumococci were genotyped by multilocus sequence typing. Serotypes were determined for 111 PPE cases; 48% were serotype 1, of 3 major genotypes previously circulating in Spain. Variance in patient complication rates was statistically significant by serotype. The recent PPE increase is principally due to nonvaccine serotypes, especially the highly invasive serotype 1.