Three experiments involving a total of 550 laying hens were conducted to study the effects of low level lactose feeding on the egg production characteristics of laying hens. The specific purposes were to determine if lactose influenced calcium utilization and feed intake and if there were any important interactions between lactose and calcium. There was a consistent significant improvement in egg shell breaking strength as a result of lactose supplementation. One percent dietary lactose appeared to be adequate to achieve this improvement. The addition of 2 or 3% lactose did not result in any greater improvement than 1%. There were no consistent influences of lactose, lactose source, or calcium level on feed intake or any of the other variables examined in the three experiments. As was expected, 61-week-old hens laid significantly fewer and larger eggs with weaker shells than 47-week-old hens. There were four statistically significant interaction effects: lactose level X calcium level on egg production; lactose level X calcium level on egg shell strength; and age X lactose level on egg shell strength. Even though these effects were statistically significant, it is questionable whether or not they are of practical importance in feeding laying hens.

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BACKGROUND:Timely recognition of sepsis and identification of pathogens can improve outcomes in critical care patients but microbial cultures have low accuracy and long turnaround times. In this proof-of-principle study, we describe metagenomic sequencing and analysis of nonhuman DNA in plasma. We hypothesized that quantitative analysis of bacterial DNA (bDNA) levels in plasma can enable detection and monitoring of pathogens. METHODS:We enrolled 30 patients suspected of sepsis in the surgical trauma intensive care unit and collected plasma samples at the time of diagnostic workup for sepsis (baseline), and 7 days and 14 days later. We performed metagenomic sequencing of plasma DNA and used computational classification of sequencing reads to detect and quantify total and pathogen-specific bDNA fraction. To improve assay sensitivity, we developed an enrichment method for bDNA based on size selection for shorter fragment lengths. Differences in bDNA fractions between samples were evaluated using t test and linear mixed-effects model, following log transformation. RESULTS:We analyzed 72 plasma samples from 30 patients. Twenty-seven samples (37.5%) were collected at the time of infection. Median total bDNA fraction was 1.6 times higher in these samples compared with samples with no infection (0.011% and 0.0068%, respectively, p < 0.001). In 17 patients who had active infection at enrollment and at least one follow-up sample collected, total bDNA fractions were higher at baseline compared with the next sample ( p < 0.001). Following enrichment, bDNA fractions increased in paired samples by a mean of 16.9-fold. Of 17 samples collected at the time when bacterial pathogens were identified, we detected pathogenspecific DNA in 13 plasma samples (76.5%). CONCLUSION:Bacterial DNA levels in plasma are elevated in critically ill patients with active infection. Pathogen-specific DNA is detectable in plasma, particularly after enrichment using selection for shorter fragments. Serial changes in bDNA levels may be informative of treatment response.