Immune Function and Metabolism of Hibernating North American Bats with White-nose Syndrome PDF Download

Author: Briana Anderson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bats
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
White-nose syndrome (WNS) causes substantial mortality in certain species of hibernating North American bats. The responsible agent is Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd), a fungus which causes physiological complications such as increased arousals and energy depletion during the hibernation season. Tricolored bats (Perimyotis subflavus) and northern long-eared bats (Myotis septentrionalis) suffer extensive WNS mortality, while gray bats (Myotis grisescens) and big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) are infected, but mortality is rarely observed. It is hypothesized that there is a difference in immune responses and/or hibernation metabolism between these bat species, resulting in this interspecific variation in disease severity. To test these hypotheses, experiments were conducted at both the cellular and whole-bat level. Tricolored bats were infected with Pd and half were treated with an anti-inflammatory to mute any immune response. Data from measurements of torpor energetics did not support the hypothesis, but an immune response was observed in mid-hibernation, based on white blood cell counts. Also, wing tissue fibroblasts from the four species listed above were infected with Pd, and RNA-seq analysis revealed interspecific differences in gene expression in response to Pd. This study could aid in establishing treatment and conservation strategies for North American bats. In addition, a cell culture method has been pioneered that will allow researchers to address a myriad of immunological questions, such as which western bat species might be most susceptible to WNS as it spreads westward.

Author: Keslie Naffa
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bats
Languages : en
Pages : 88

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Book Description
White-nose syndrome (WNS) has had a large negative impact on bat populations across eastern North America since its arrival in 2006. Bats affected by WNS appear to die of starvation, possibly due to the increased arousals during hibernation when there is no food present to replace the energy used to arouse. During hibernation, the bat’s immune system should be suppressed. However, once a bat of a susceptible species is exposed to the fungus that causes WNS, Psuedogymnoascus destructans (Pd), the immune system seems to respond, potentially causing an elevation in metabolic rate, which may cause the bat to arouse more often. I hypothesize that resistant bats do not mount an immune response; however, if they do mount an immune response, I hypothesize that bats inoculated with Pd and treated with an anti-inflammatory treatment will not respond to the infection, ultimately preserving fat reserves and lowering metabolic expenditures during hibernation. I tested these hypotheses by inoculating a species that does not suffer from high WNS mortality (big brown bats: Eptesicus fuscus), with Pd. Meloxicam was given to one of the three treatment groups in order to suppress the immune system. Metabolic rate during torpor, via oxygen consumption, was measured in addition to arousal/torpor bout patterns, the latter utilizing temperature-sensitive dataloggers. To quantify expression of four immune-function genes (NLRP10, CD200, ICAM5, and TNFRSF21), gene activity was measured via RT-qPCR on tissue and blood samples taken from each bat pre- and post-hibernation. These genes were chosen based on a prior study that showed differences in these genes between susceptible and resistant species. There were no significant differences found across treatment groups for gene expression, nor energetic data; however, hibernation did suppress NLRP10 expression, and blood samples consistently had higher gene expression than tissue samples, thus indicating these genes may be expressed at low levels in some tissues. It is imperative that we continue investigating the differences between susceptible and resistant bat species as WNS is advancing westward throughout the country.

Author: Christian C. Voigt
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319252208
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 601

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Book Description
This book focuses on central themes related to the conservation of bats. It details their response to land-use change and management practices, intensified urbanization and roost disturbance and loss. Increasing interactions between humans and bats as a result of hunting, disease relationships, occupation of human dwellings, and conflict over fruit crops are explored in depth. Finally, contributors highlight the roles that taxonomy, conservation networks and conservation psychology have to play in conserving this imperilled but vital taxon. With over 1300 species, bats are the second largest order of mammals, yet as the Anthropocene dawns, bat populations around the world are in decline. Greater understanding of the anthropogenic drivers of this decline and exploration of possible mitigation measures are urgently needed if we are to retain global bat diversity in the coming decades. This book brings together teams of international experts to provide a global review of current understanding and recommend directions for future research and mitigation.

Author: Roymon Jacob
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bats
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
Small mammals have evolved many mechanisms for surviving winter, including alteration of immune function mediated by the metabolically important adipose tissue hormone leptin. Despite adaptations for thriving and surviving seasonal variation, hibernating bats of North America are threatened by recent epidemic called "White Nose Syndrome" (WNS). To examine variation in leptin levels and immune competence during hibernation, Big Brown Bats (Eptesicus fuscus) and Little Brown Myotis (Myotis lucifugus) were housed either at euthermic/room temperature in a flight cage, artificially hibernated, or sampled from natural hibernacula in the wild. Individual temperature sensitive transponders were fitted to each bat to monitor periodic arousals and complexity of the immune system was captured by integrating multiple measures of immune function.

Author: Shie-Liang Hsieh
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9811515808
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
This book systemically presents the latest research on lectins, covering all the major topics in the field, including the heterocomplex of lectins and Toll-like receptors, protective versus pathogenic functions in connection with microbial infections, and novel strategies for enhancing host immunity against infectious diseases caused by viruses, bacteria, and fungi. Lectins are a large group of glycan-binding proteins that recognize diverse glycan and non-glycan structures expressed on prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, and are vital to cell-cell interactions, the attachment of microbes to host cells, and the recognition and activation of immune responses to exogenous and endogenous danger signals. The composition and structure of microbes are complex and include numerous ‘pathogen-associated molecular patterns’ or ‘damage-associated molecular patterns’. As such, microbes’ interactions with immune cells activate multiple innate immunity receptors and produce distinct inflammatory reactions, which can be protective to contain microbial invasion, or pathogenic to cause tissue damage and shock syndrome in the host. The book shares lessons learned from state-of-the art research in this field, highlights the latest discoveries, and provides insightful discussions on lectin-mediated inflammatory reactions, while also outlining future research directions.

Author: Craig L. L. Frank
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
White-nose Syndrome (WNS) is an emergent mycosis in North America that is caused by a severe cutaneous infection with the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd) during hibernation. Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd) was first observed in North America at a single site during the winter of 2006,Äì2007 and has since spread to 39¬†U.S. States and 7 Canadian provinces. This fungus was introduced to North America from Europe, where it is endemic. WNS has thus far been observed to occur only in hibernating bats and has caused the populations of 4 North American bat species to decline by more than 84% within 7¬†years. Field studies have revealed that 4 other North American bat species are not afflicted with WNS when hibernating in areas where Pd occurs. The physiological and biochemical adaptations that permit some bat species to resist Pd infections are starting to be elucidated but are still poorly understood. A total of 47 different bat species are found in North America, about half of which hibernate during the winter. The potential future effects of WNS on 13 of these hibernating bat species remains to be determined.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bats
Languages : en
Pages : 16

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Book Description
“White-nose syndrome” (WNS) is an emerging fungal disease of hibernating North American bat species. To date, WNS has likely killed between 5.7 and 6.7 million hibernating bats in caves and inactive mines in the eastern USA, and has contributed to the imperilment of some bat populations and species. The WNS fungus (Geomyces destructans) has the potential to kill individuals of many of the 18 bat species native to Colorado. Bats are ecologically and economically important, and measures to prevent the spread of WNS and minimize its impacts on native bat species are clearly warranted.

Author: Tina L. Cheng
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780355334098
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 122

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Book Description
Emerging infectious diseases can place severe pressures on wildlife populations, leading to major population declines, local extirpation, and species extinctions. However, variability in disease impacts, existing among species and across a spatial and temporal scale, can help us identify species or populations persisting with disease either via resistance, tolerance, pathogen evasion, or by existing within environmental refugia. Understanding mechanisms leading to host persistence can inform conservation management priorities and strategies. White-nose Syndrome (WNS) is a recently emerged disease caused by the fungal pathogen, Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd), that has led to severe declines in hibernating bat populations in North America. This work examines patterns and mechanisms associated with variability in WNS impacts with implications for the conservation of affected species. My first chapter investigates spatial heterogeneity in initial impacts of Pd spread across half of continental North America. We found that WNS-related impacts were lessened in the southwestern regions of North America, suggesting potential spatial refugia from WNS-related impacts but only for Perimyotis subflavus. We found that annual air surface temperatures driving Pd growth explained, in part, this spatial variation in WNS-related impacts. Despite evidence for lessened WNS-related declines in the southwest, impacts to bat populations are severe throughout North America for most bat species. My second chapter examines colonies of M. lucifugus that have experienced variability in declines over time, persisting potentially due to host-specific responses. Specifically, I investigate if differences in early winter fat reserves could explain survivorship and persistence of M. lucifugus colonies with WNS. We found that bats persisting with WNS in 2016 were significantly fatter than bats colonies sampled during WNS arrival in 2008 and 2009 at four out of our six sampled sites. At another two sites, we found that bats were either fatter in 2008 and 2009 compared to 2016. We used hibernation energetic models to estimate the amount of fat afforded to survival and found that increased fat reserves from bats measured in 2016 could reduce mortality by 65%. These data suggest that increased fat reserves can explain, in part, the persistence of M. lucifugus colonies with WNS. Lastly, my third chapter experimentally investigates one possible cause of variability in WNS impacts, variation host susceptibility via protective bacteria in the skin microbiome. In this chapter, I explore the efficacy of using a probiotic bacterium, harvested from the skin of a species experiencing lessened WNS impacts, Eptesicus fuscus , as a conservation tool applied to a more highly affected bat species, M. lucifugus. We found relative increases in survival for probiotic-treated groups compared to our sham control group. We also found evidence for decreased fungal infection and severity in probiotic-treated groups. Our results suggest that probiotic treatment can reduce incidence of White-nose Syndrome in M. lucifugus although timing of treatment is an important factor. Together, this work finds that variability in spatial, species-specific, and temporal impacts from WNS can inform conservation efforts. Namely, this work suggests that bat conservation should involve a multi-pronged approach that protects colonies where bats are persisting with WNS via habitat restoration, and potentially treating bats for threatened populations not persisting with WNS. Given the continued threat of WNS to bats as it spreads throughout North America, using a variety of tools to combat this disease may be critical to prevent disease-induced extinction and the local extirpation of affected bat species.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bats
Languages : en
Pages : 15

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Book Description
“White-nose syndrome” (WNS) is an emerging fungal disease of hibernating North American bat species. To date, WNS has likely killed between 5.7 and 6.7 million hibernating bats in caves and inactive mines in the eastern USA, and has contributed to the imperilment of some bat populations and species. The WNS fungus (Geomyces destructans) has the potential to kill individuals of many of the 18 bat species native to Colorado. Bats are ecologically and economically important, and measures to prevent the spread of WNS and minimize its impacts on native bat species are clearly warranted.

Author: Seyedmojtaba Seyedmousavi
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319720937
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
This book provides in-depth insights into epidemic and emerging mycoses in various animal groups. The different categories of pathogens and outbreak fungi are discussed. In an introductory chapter, the reader will be provided basic information on fungal infections that are non-transmissible, infections from a common environmental source known as sapronoses, and zoophilic fungal pathogens in various animal species and populations, worldwide Chapter 2 details the vocabulary and terminology that is required in the scientific literature in order to maintain clarity of expression to the field of Mycology. Chapters 3 to 9 discuss epidemic mycoses with a reservoir in animals and occasional outbreaks, including dermatophytoses, coccidioidomycosis, histoplasmosis, paracoccidioidomycosis, adiaspiromycosis and similar diseases, blastomycosis, and paracoccidioidomycosis ceti (lacaziosis/lobomycosis). Chapters 10 to 15 comprise emerging mycoses in animals that include feline sporotrichosis, lethargic crab disease, emergence of C. gattii in animals and zoonotic potential, white-nose syndrome in hibernating bats, chytridiomycosis in frogs and salamanders and aspergillosis in cats. The last chapter is about treatment possibilities, antifungal use in veterinary practice, and emergence of resistance. The book will address medical and veterinary mycologists, microbiologists, veterinarians, infectious disease specialists, epidemiologists, ecologists, public health scientists from academia and industry as well as graduate students, PhD students and postdocs in the field.