Infectious bursal disease (IBD) is one of the most prevalent infectious diseases caused by IBD virus (IBDV), which results in bursal necrosis and imm

Pyroptosis is an innate immune response triggered by the activation of inflammasomes by various influencing factors, characterized by cell destruction. It impacts the immune system and cancer immunotherapy. In recent years, the roles of pyroptosis and inflammasomes in intestinal inflammation and cancer have been continuously confirmed. This article reviews the latest progress in pyroptosis mechanisms, new discoveries of inflammasomes, mutual regulation between inflammasomes, and their applications in intestinal diseases. Additionally, potential synergistic treatment mechanisms of intestinal diseases with pyroptosis are summarized, and challenges and future directions are discussed, providing new ideas for pyroptosis therapy.

The chemical properties of β-glucans leading to their inhibition on aflatoxin (AF) production by Aspergillus flavus remain unclear. In this study, structurally modified lentinan derivatives were prepared by carboxymethylation, sulfation, and phosphorylation to explore their inhibition activity to AF synthesis. The results demonstrated that inhibitory activity of lentinan decreased at higher or lower concentrations than 200 μg/mL. Compared with lentinan, the sulphated derivatives only performed a reduced optimal inhibition rate at a higher concentration. The phosphorylated derivatives achieved complete inhibition of AF production at 50 μg/mL, but the inhibitory activity was attenuated with an increase of concentration. The minimum concentration of carboxymethylated derivatives to completely inhibit AF synthesis was the same as that of the original lentinan, whereas their inhibition activity was not reduced at the increasing concentration. RT-PCR analyses were conducted to understand the effects of lentinan and its carboxymethylated derivatives on the transcription of certain genes associated with AF biosynthesis. The results showed that lentinan delayed the transcription of aflQ, whereas its carboxymethylated derivatives promoted the transcriptions of all the tested genes. Our results revealed that some chemical group features apart from the β-bond could play the vital role in the prevention of AF formation by polysaccharide, and highlighted the structural modifications which could promote its practicability in the control of aflatoxin contamination.

Salmonella is one of the most common Gram-negative pathogens and seriously threatens chicken farms and food safety. This study aimed to establish a multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) approach for the identification of different Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica. The citE2 gene and interval sequence of SPS4_00301–SPS4_00311 existed in all S. enterica subsp. enterica serovars by genomic comparison. By contrast, a 76 bp deletion in citE2 was found only in Salmonella Pullorum. Two pairs of special primers designed from citE2 and interval sequence were used to establish the multiplex PCR system. The optimized multiplex PCR system could distinguish Salmonella Pullorum and non-Salmonella Pullorum. The sensitivity of the optimized multiplex PCR system could be as low as 6.25 pg/μL and 10⁴ colony-forming units (CFU)/mL for genomic DNA and Salmonella Pullorum cells, respectively. The developed multiplex PCR assay distinguished Salmonella Pullorum from 33 different Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serotypes and 13 non-target species. The detection of egg samples artificially contaminated with Salmonella Pullorum, Salmonella Enteritidis, and naturally contaminated 69 anal swab samples showed that results were consistent with the culture method. These features indicated that the developed multiplex PCR system had high sensitivity and specificity and could be used for the accurate detection of Salmonella Pullorum in clinical samples.