SFTS has been endemic to Japan, and SFTSV has been circulating naturally within the country.

Gut microbiota mediates the effects of diet, thereby modifying host metabolism and the incidence of metabolic disorders. Increased consumption of omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) that is abundant in Western diet contributes to obesity and related diseases. Although gut-microbiota-related metabolic pathways of dietary PUFAs were recently elucidated, the effects on host physiological function remain unclear. Here, we demonstrate that gut microbiota confers host resistance to high-fat diet (HFD)-induced obesity by modulating dietary PUFAs metabolism. Supplementation of 10-hydroxy- cis -12-octadecenoic acid (HYA), an initial linoleic acid-related gut-microbial metabolite, attenuates HFD-induced obesity in mice without eliciting arachidonic acid-mediated adipose inflammation and by improving metabolic condition via free fatty acid receptors. Moreover, Lactobacillus -colonized mice show similar effects with elevated HYA levels. Our findings illustrate the interplay between gut microbiota and host energy metabolism via the metabolites of dietary omega-6-FAs thereby shedding light on the prevention and treatment of metabolic disorders by targeting gut microbial metabolites.

Virus-infected fruit bats showed no signs of clinical infection.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) has become a global public health emergency. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of SARS-induced cytopathic effects (CPEs) is a rational approach for the prevention of SARS, and an understanding of the cellular stress responses induced by viral infection is important for understanding the CPEs. Polyclonal antibodies, which recognized nucleocapsid (N) and membrane (M) proteins, detected viral N and M proteins in virus-infected Vero E6 cells at least 6 and 12 h post-infection (h.p.i.), respectively. Furthermore, detection of DNA ladder and cleaved caspase-3 in the virus-infected cells at 24h.p.i. indicated that SARS-CoV infection induced apoptotic cell death. Phosphorylation of p38 MAPK was significantly up-regulated at 18 h.p.i. in SARS-CoV-infected cells. The downstream targets of p38 MAPK, MAPKAPK-2, HSP-27, CREB, and eIF4E were phosphorylated in virus-infected cells. The p38 MAPK inhibitor, SB203580, inhibited effectively phosphorylation of HSP-27, CREB, and eIF4E in SARS-CoV-infected cells. However, viral protein synthesis was not affected by treatment of SB203580.

With the severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic of 2003 and renewed attention on avian influenza viral pandemics, new surveillance systems are needed for the earlier detection of emerging infectious diseases. We applied a “next-generation” parallel sequencing platform for viral detection in nasopharyngeal and fecal samples collected during seasonal influenza virus (Flu) infections and norovirus outbreaks from 2005 to 2007 in Osaka, Japan. Random RT-PCR was performed to amplify RNA extracted from 0.1–0.25 ml of nasopharyngeal aspirates (N = 3) and fecal specimens (N = 5), and more than 10 µg of cDNA was synthesized. Unbiased high-throughput sequencing of these 8 samples yielded 15,298–32,335 (average 24,738) reads in a single 7.5 h run. In nasopharyngeal samples, although whole genome analysis was not available because the majority (>90%) of reads were host genome–derived, 20–460 Flu-reads were detected, which was sufficient for subtype identification. In fecal samples, bacteria and host cells were removed by centrifugation, resulting in gain of 484–15,260 reads of norovirus sequence (78–98% of the whole genome was covered), except for one specimen that was under-detectable by RT-PCR. These results suggest that our unbiased high-throughput sequencing approach is useful for directly detecting pathogenic viruses without advance genetic information. Although its cost and technological availability make it unlikely that this system will very soon be the diagnostic standard worldwide, this system could be useful for the earlier discovery of novel emerging viruses and bioterrorism, which are difficult to detect with conventional procedures.