ABSTRACT. Plasma profiles of glucose, insulin and lipids were examined in the male WBN/Kob-Lepr fa (fa/fa) rat, a new model of type 2 diabetes (T2D), in comparison with age-matched original male WBN/Kob (lean) rats. The fa/fa rats developed hypertriglycemia, obesity and hyperglycemia from 5, 7, and 9 weeks of age, respectively. Plasma insulin levels in fa/fa rats were significantly higher than those in lean rats at 5 weeks of age, but after 11 weeks of age gradually declined to the levels in lean rats. HOMA-IR, a measure of insulin resistance status, showed that fa/fa rats had insulin resistance. The fa/fa rat has the potential to become an important animal model of T2D with obesity. Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a major global health problem, and rapidly increasing in prevalence worldwide [3,9,10,14]. T2D is a multifactorial disease caused by a hormonal imbalance between insulin secretion and peripheral insulin sensitivity [5]. Animal models of T2D are useful to elucidate the pathogenesis of the disease and to evaluate the therapeutic activity of new medications. The currently established rodent T2D models are divided into 2 broad categories: experimentally induced nonspontaneous models, and genetically induced spontaneous models.The WBN/Kob-Lepr fa (fa/fa) rat is a new congenic strain that has been developed by introducing the fa gene of the Zucker fatty (ZF) rat into the original WBN/Kob (lean) rat genome [1,2]. The male, but not female, lean rat is a hereditary model of diabetes mellitus and chronic pancreatitis [13,15]. The leptin receptor fatty gene (Lepr fa ) is a recessive mutation which was reported as a cause of obesity in ZF rats which exhibit hyperphagia resulting from a deficiency of leptin receptor signaling followed by obesity, hyperinsulinemia and dyslipidemia [6,11,16]. The fa/fa rat has been reported as a model of T2D with obesity [1, 2], but little is known about profiles of plasma insulin and lipids in this strain. In order to further characterize the fa/fa rat as a T2D model, we evaluated the plasma profiles of glucose, insulin and lipids in fa/fa rats in comparison with those in lean rats.Male WBN/Kob-Lepr fa (fa/fa) rats and age-matched male WBN/Kob (lean) rats (Japan SLC Inc., Shizuoka, Japan) were used in the present study. The fa/fa rats were confirmed by genotyping of the fa locus, performed according to a PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism method [8]. The rats were housed in a climate-controlled room with a temperature of 23 ± 3°C, humidity of 55 ± 5%, and 12-hr lighting cycle. A commercial rat chow (CRF-1 ® , Oriental Yeast, Tokyo, Japan) and water were provided ad libitum. All study protocols were approved by the Animal Research Committee of Azabu University.Body weight and plasma levels of glucose, insulin, triglyceride (TG) and non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA) were analyzed in rats from the age of 5 weeks to 19 weeks at 2-week intervals. Blood was collected from the tail vein of non-fasted conscious rats into a heparinized glass capillary, and centrifuged to remove plasma. P...

Rotavirus C (RVC) is a major cause of diarrhoea in swine, cattle, and humans worldwide. RVC exhibits sequence diversity in all 11 genes, especially in VP4 and VP7, and all segment-based genotyping has been performed similar to rotavirus A. To date, recombination events have been reported in rotavirus A and B. However, there are no reports describing gene recombination of RVC, except for recombination in NSP3 between RVC and rotavirus H. In this study, nine porcine RVC strains identified in Japanese pigs were completely sequenced and analysed together with RVC sequences from the GenBank database. The analyses showed that sequences of the VP4, VP2, and NSP1 of several porcine RVC strains did not branch with any of those of the RVC strains in the GenBank database, suggesting new genotypes. Several homologous recombination events, between or within genotypes, were identified in the VP4, VP7, VP2, NSP1, and NSP3 genes. Of these, nine, one, and one intergenotypic recombination events in the VP4, VP2, and NSP3 genes, respectively, were supported with sufficient statistical values. Although these findings suggest occurrences of the intragenic recombination events in the RVC genome, potential sequence errors and poor sequence assemblies in the databases should be watched with care. The results in this study present data about the important recombination events of the RVCs, which influence evolution of the virus by aiding them to gain genetic diversity and plasticity, although further sequence data will be necessary to obtain more comprehensive understanding of such mechanisms.

A novel picornavirus was isolated from the faeces of a diarrhoeic cow using MA-104 cells at the third blind passage. This virus, named Den1/2021/JPN, was completely sequenced using total RNA from the cell culture supernatant by deep sequencing. The genome of Den1/2021/JPN had a standard picornavirus genome organisation with conserved picornaviral motifs. The 5′ untranslated region harboured a type-II internal ribosomal entry site. Den1/2021/JPN was most closely related to a bovine parechovirus (Bo_ParV) named cow/2018/4, which has been recently identified in publicly available databases. Phylogenetic analyses and pairwise sequence comparison revealed that Den1/2021/JPN and Bo_ParV cow/2018/4 clustered with parechoviruses and were most closely related to Parechovirus E identified in birds of prey, exhibiting nucleotide sequence similarity of 64.2–64.5 %, 58.6–59.7 % and 66.3–66.4 % in the polyprotein, P1 and 2C+3 CD coding regions, respectively. This study presents the first report on the isolation of Bo_ParV. Den1/2021/JPN and Bo_ParV cow/2018/4, which are candidates for a novel species in the genus Parechovirus.