Spontaneous gallbladder pathology in baboons

Background Gallbladder pathology (GBP) is a relatively uncommon, naturally occurring morbidity in both baboons and humans. Methods A retrospective analysis was performed on 7776 necropsy reports over a 20 year period to determine the prevalence of baboon GBP. Results Ninety‐seven cases of GBP were identified, yielding a 20 year population prevalence of 1.25%. GBP is more common in adult female baboons, occurring with a female to male ratio of nearly 2:1. Among gallbladder pathologies, cholecystitis (35.1%) and cholelithiasis (29.9%) were the most prevalent abnormalities, followed by hyperplasia (16.5%), edema (15.5%), amyloidosis (5.2%), fibrosis (4.1%), necrosis (4.1%), and hemorrhage (1.0%). Conclusion Many epidemiologic similarities exist between GBP in baboons and humans suggesting that the baboon may serve as a reliable animal model system for investigating GBP in humans.     

Real‐time telemetric monitoring in whole‐body 60Co gamma‐photon irradiated rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta)

Background Animals undergoing experimental manipulations, such as exposure to radiation, may exhibit physiologic and behavioral signs of pain and distress. Telemetry permits close monitoring of these parameters for early and effective management during procedures. Methods Radiotelemetric units were surgically implanted into 24 Macaca mulatta before 6.5‐Gy cobalt‐60 γ‐photon irradiation. Each unit transmitted electrocardiogram, intrathoracic pressure, and body temperature leads. Primate irradiation‐restraint boxes and housing cages were modified to collect telemetric signals before, during, and after irradiation. Results Differences in respiratory rate, heart rate, or body temperature in telemetric‐collected recordings, which were observed during non‐irradiation and irradiation sessions, were statistically insignificant. Conclusions Insignificant changes in the physiological parameters during monitoring suggest that the animals experienced no detectable pain or distress during irradiation.     

Intra‐individual polymorphism in chloroplasts from NGS data: where does it come from and how to handle it?

Next‐generation sequencing allows access to a large quantity of genomic data. In plants, several studies used whole chloroplast genome sequences for inferring phylogeography or phylogeny. Even though the chloroplast is a haploid organelle, NGS plastome data identified a nonnegligible number of intra‐individual polymorphic SNPs. Such observations could have several causes such as sequencing errors, the presence of heteroplasmy or transfer of chloroplast sequences in the nuclear and mitochondrial genomes. The occurrence of allelic diversity has practical important impacts on the identification of diversity, the analysis of the chloroplast data and beyond that, significant evolutionary questions. In this study, we show that the observed intra‐individual polymorphism of chloroplast sequence data is probably the result of plastid DNA transferred into the mitochondrial and/or the nuclear genomes. We further assess nine different bioinformatics pipelines’ error rates for SNP and genotypes calling using SNPs identified in Sanger sequencing. Specific pipelines are adequate to deal with this issue, optimizing both specificity and sensitivity. Our results will allow a proper use of whole chloroplast NGS sequence and will allow a better handling of NGS chloroplast sequence diversity.