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- Author or Editor: Qun Liu x
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Abortion in dairy cattle causes considerable economic losses to the dairy industry. Aborted fetuses and samples from the corresponding aborting dams from 12 dairy herds in Beijing were tested for 9 abortifacient infectious pathogens by PCR between 2008 and 2010. From a total of 80 abortion cases collected during this period, infectious agents were detected in 45 (56.3%) cases, 22 (48.9%) of which represented co-infections with two or three infectious agents. The detected pathogens included infectious bovine rhinotracheitis virus (36.3%) and Neospora caninum (31.3%), followed by bovine viral diarrhoea virus (7.5%), Brucella abortus (6.3%), Tritrichomonas foetus (5%) and Toxoplasma gondii (1.3%). Campylobacter fetus, Coxiella burnetii and Chlamydophila psittaci were not detected in any abortion case. Findings from this study indicated that infectious bovine rhinotracheitis virus and Neospora caninum were the main potential causes of abortions in Beijing dairy herds, whereas the bacterial pathogens were not, in contrast to reports from other countries. This is the first study to test nine abortifacient infectious agents by PCR at the same time, and it is also the first time to report the involvement of a variety of infectious agents in bovine abortion cases in China.
Abstract
The ability of hexadecyltrimethylammonium cation pillared bentonite (HDTMA+-bentonite) has been explored for the removal and recovery of uranium from aqueous solutions. The adsorbent was characterized using small-angle X-ray diffraction, high resolution transmission electron microscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The influences of different experimental parameters such as solution pH, initial uranium concentration, contact time, dosage and temperature on adsorption were investigated. The HDTMA+-bentonite exhibited the highest uranium sorption capacity at initial pH of 6.0 and at 80 min. Adsorption kinetics was better described by the pseudo-second-order model and adsorption process could be well defined by the Langmuir isotherm. The thermodynamic parameters, △G° (308 K), ΔH°, and ΔS° were determined to be −31.64, −83.84 kJ/mol, and −169.49 J/mol/K, respectively, which demonstrated the sorption process of HDTMA+-bentonite towards U(VI) was feasible, spontaneous, and exothermic in nature. The adsorption on HDTMA+-bentonite was more favor than Na-bentonite, in addition the saturated monolayer sorption capacity increased from 65.02 to 106.38 mg/g at 298 K after HDTMA+ pillaring. Complete removal (≈100%) of U(VI) from 1.0 L simulated nuclear industry wastewater containing 10.0 mg U(VI) ions was possible with 1.5 g HDTMA+-bentonite.
Abstract
The ability of hexadecyltrimethylammonium cation pillared bentonite (HDTMA+-bentonite) has been explored for the removal and recovery of thorium from aqueous solutions. The adsorbent was characterized using small-angle X-ray diffraction, high resolution transmission electron microscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The influences of different experimental parameters such as solution pH, initial thorium concentration, contact time and temperature on adsorption were investigated. The HDTMA+-bentonite showed the highest thorium sorption capacity at initial pH of 3.5 and contact time of 60 min. Adsorption kinetics was better described by the pseudo-second-order model and adsorption process could be well defined by the Langmuir isotherm. The thermodynamic parameters, ∆G° (298 K), ∆H° and ∆S° were determined to be −31.78, −23.71 kJ/mol and 27.10 J/mol K, respectively, which demonstrated the sorption process of HDTMA+-bentonite towards Th(VI) was feasible, spontaneous and exothermic in nature. The adsorption on HDTMA+-bentonite was more favor than Na-bentonite, in addition the saturated monolayer sorption capacity increased from 17.88 to 31.20 mg/g at 298 K after HDTMA+ pillaring. The adsorbed HDTMA+-bentonite could be effectively regenerated by 0.1 mol/L HCl solution for the removal and recovery of Th(VI). Complete removal (99.9 %) of Th(VI) from 1.0 L industry wastewater containing 16.8 mg Th(VI) ions was possible with 7.0 g HDTMA+-bentonite.
The immunogenicity of a DNA vaccine expressing the surface protein NcSRS2 of Neospora caninum was studied in BALB/c mice. The NcSRS2-encoding DNA was obtained by PCR amplification of the NcSRS2 ORF gene from the p43 plasmid encoding the N. caninum surface protein NcSRS2, ligated to the mammalian expression vector pcDNA3.1/Zeo(+) and propagated in E. coli DH5α to produce the N. caninum NcSRS2 DNA vaccine. BALB/c mice were immunised by two intramuscular injections of the DNA vaccine with or without complete Freund’s adjuvant (CFA). Serum antibody titres and nitric oxide (NO) concentrations, and splenocyte proliferation and cytokine expression were measured after immunisation. The DNA vaccine induced T-cell-mediated immunity as shown by significantly increased NO concentrations, cytokine gene (IL-2 and IFN-γ) expression, and NcSRS2 protein-stimulated lymphocyte proliferation in mice immunised with the DNA vaccine. The vaccine also induced weak humoral immunity. The immunogenicity of the DNA vaccine was slightly enhanced by CFA. The immune response was specific to NcSRS2. No immune response was observed in mice immunised with the pcDNA3.1/Zeo(+) vector alone.
