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Anaerobic digestion is one of the most widely used treatment methods for animal manure. Chicken manure has high methane production potential and is thus a suitable substrate for biogas plants. However, high nitrogen content inhibits the metabolism of anaerobic microorganisms and thus hinders methane production from chicken manure. Enhancing the performance of anaerobic digestion for chicken manure is indeed a long-standing challenge. This review presents new insights into maintaining methanogens’ activities, the decomposition of acetate, and the dynamics of methanogenic pathways under high ammonia stress. This review also analyzed the possible strategies for alleviating ammonia inhibition effects, including supplementing trace elements, co-digestion with nitrogen-less materials, in-situ ammonia removal, and long adaptation of anaerobic consortia to ammonia stress. The insights obtained in this paper may provide helpful information for a better understanding of anaerobic digestion technology for chicken manure and other nitrogen-rich waste and wastewater.

The chicken infectious anemia virus (CIAV) and fowl adenovirus serotype E8b (FAdV E8b) are pathogens that cause aplastic anemia and inclusion body hepatitis (IBH) in chickens, respectively. The co-infection of CIAV and FAdV E8b poses a significant threat to poultry health, potentially worsening clinical symptoms and increasing mortality rates. This study aimed to explore the combined pathogenic effects of FAdV E8b and CIAV co-infection on one-day-old specific pathogen-free (SPF) chickens. The results showed that co-infection led to significantly higher clinical scores and mortality rates compared to FAdV E8b infection alone. Additionally, there were different tissue distribution patterns for FAdV E8b between the single infection and co-infection groups, indicating potential changes in viral tropism. Biochemical analysis revealed elevated markers of liver and/or muscle damage in both the FAdV E8b infection group and the co-infection group, consistent with the viral infection process. These findings suggest that co-infection with FAdV E8b and CIAV can intensify clinical signs and mortality, and may potentially alter viral replication and tissue tropism in chickens. This study establishes a foundation for future investigations into the underlying mechanisms governing the interaction between CIAV and FAdV E8b during co-infection.

Vaccination remains the primary strategy for controlling infectious diseases in farm animals. However, current conventional vaccines demonstrate clinical limitations including suboptimal immunogenicity and frequent booster requirements, which compromise disease management efficacy. This study presents an innovative vaccine platform combining yolk immunoglobulin (IgY) with inactivated antigens as co-immunization components. We developed two formulations targeting economically significant pathogens: avian Fowl Adenovirus Serotype 4 (FAdV-4) and Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus (PEDV). For FAdV-4 vaccine evaluation in specific pathogen-free (SPF) chickens, the IgY-antigen complex demonstrated superior immunogenic properties compared to conventional inactivated vaccines. When administered as a single dose at 14 days of age, the experimental formulation elicited significantly stronger humoral responses as measured by both serum neutralization (SN ) and ELISA. Notably, this vaccination strategy provided 100% protection against lethal FAdV-4 challenge from 0 h to 20 weeks post-vaccination, with complete absence of clinical disease manifestations. In PEDV assessment using mouse models, the IgY-antigen formulation induced significantly higher antibody titers than inactivated antigen alone at all post-immunization timepoints ( < 0.01). Comparative analysis revealed our dual-component platform enhanced both the intensity and rapidity of protective immune responses compared to traditional inactivated vaccines. These findings establish that the IgY-antigen co-immunization strategy represents a promising approach for developing new veterinary vaccines with improved protective efficacy. The platform's ability to generate robust, rapid-onset immunity while maintaining single-dose effectiveness addresses critical limitations of current vaccine technologies.

In recent years, the prevalence and variation of goose adenoviruses, especially Goose Adenovirus Type 4 (GoAdV-4), have threatened waterfowl farming, while their genetic evolution and pathogenic mechanisms remain unelucidated. In May 2024, a novel GoAdV-4 strain (JA2485) was isolated from diseased Sanhua geese in Jian City, Jiangxi Province, China. It propagated in 11-13-day-old goose embryos, with a 50% embryo infectious dose (EID ) of 10 /0.1 mL. Whole-genome sequencing (GenBank Accession No. PQ152938) showed its genome is 43,030 base pairs long, containing 33 protein-coding regions and 2 fiber genes. Phylogenetic analysis revealed JA2485 is closely related to the Hungarian P29 strain and Chinese CH-FJZZ-202201 strain (nucleotide similarity: 94-96.8%), but clusters in a different branch from other avian adenoviruses. In pathogenicity tests on 1-day-old Sanhua geese, both subcutaneous injection and oral inoculation groups had 50% mortality. Infected geese showed weight loss, depression, reduced appetite, increased recumbency, and even paralysis in severe cases. Post mortem examination revealed hepatic rounded margins, yellowing, focal hemorrhages, and renal hemorrhagic lesions. Notably, viral loads were highest in the liver, duodenum, and cloacal swabs, suggesting fecal transmission. This study provides a key basis for clarifying GoAdV-4's evolutionary characteristics and pathogenic mechanisms, and formulating targeted prevention strategies.

Underwater image geometric distortion and detail degradation caused by water absorption and scattering, uneven illumination, and refractive distortion severely limit the accuracy of underwater vision tasks. To this end, this paper proposes an E-PUGAN enhancement model based on a physics-model-guided GAN framework. Its core innovations include: (1) designing a position-aware EfficientViM module based on the HSM-SSD architecture, which enhances spatial structural understanding by embedding spatial coordinate information and solves the problem of local structural misalignment caused by underwater refractive distortion; (2) combining a channel/spatial dual-gating mechanism to dynamically adjust the feature weights of degraded regions, and jointly utilizing the dual-path fusion module DUF to achieve adaptive multi-granularity feature fusion, addressing the over- and under-enhancement issues in traditional residual network connections; (3) A triplet dataset for underwater images, UIE-Triplet160, is proposed, and the UIE-LPIPS loss function is constructed to improve the alignment between underwater color distortion correction and human visual perception. Experiments on four mainstream benchmark datasets, including UIEB and LSUI, demonstrate that E-PUGAN shows significant advantages over eight state-of-the-art methods, achieving objective metric improvements of up to PSNR 28.02 dB and SSIM 0.906. Visualization results further verify the superiority of the proposed method in detail preservation and natural color restoration.

According to previous studies, three representative avian adenoviral strains utilize coxsackievirus–adenovirus receptor (CAR) as a receptor and seem to exhibit diverse binding affinities and modes. Thus, further revealing the exact molecular mechanism underlying the interaction between different FAdVs and the attachment receptor CAR is necessary. In this study, we successfully solved the crystal structure of the FAdV-4 fiber1 knob at 1.6 Å resolution. The interaction between the fibre knob and different domains of CAR was verified by confocal microscopy, coimmunoprecipitation and surface plasmon resonance (SPR) analysis. The fibre knobs of the three representative fowl adenoviruses specifically recognized CAR domain 1 (D1), but the recognition of CAR domain 2 (D2) by chicken embryo lethal orphan (CELO) strains was weak. These results provide insights into the differences in adenovirus‒host cell interactions and have important implications for the exploration of viral invasion mechanisms.

Anaerobic digestion of animal manure results in the production of renewable energy (biogas) and nutrient-rich biofertilizer. A further benefit of the technology is decreased greenhouse gas emissions that otherwise occur during manure storage. Since animal manure makes anaerobic digestion cost-efficient and further advance the technology for higher methane yields, it is of utmost importance to find strategies to improve bottlenecks such as the degradation of lignocellulose, e.g., in cattle manure, or to circumvent microbial inhibition by ammonia caused by the degradation of nitrogen compounds in, e.g., chicken, duck, or swine manure. This review summarizes the characteristics of different animal manures and provides insight into the underlying microbial mechanisms causing challenging problems with the anaerobic digestion process. A particular focus is put upon the retention time and organic loading rate in high-ammonia processes, which should be designed and optimized to support the microorganisms that tolerate high ammonia conditions, such as the syntrophic acetate oxidizing bacteria and the hydrogenotrophic methanogens. Furthermore, operating managements used to stabilize and increase the methane yield of animal manure, including supporting materials, the addition of trace elements, or the incorporation of ammonia removal technologies, are summarized. The review is finalized with a discussion of the research needed to outline conceivable operational methods for the anaerobic digestion process of animal manure to circumvent process instability and improve the process performance.

Influenza A viruses remain a persistent global health challenge due to their rapid antigenic evolution, zoonotic potential, and pandemic threat. Universal countermeasures targeting conserved viral components are urgently needed to enhance diagnostic, surveillance, and therapeutic capabilities. Here, we report the generation and characterization of a high-affinity monoclonal antibody (2D8 mAb) against the nucleoprotein (NP) of the H9N2 avian influenza virus, a subtype with increasing relevance to human infections. Importantly, 2D8 mAb exhibited robust cross-reactivity with a broad spectrum of influenza A viruses, including H1, H3, H5, H7, and H9 subtypes, while showing no cross-reactivity with unrelated viral pathogens. Epitope mapping identified its binding target as a highly conserved NP motif 38RFYIQMCTEL47, which is invariant across all major human influenza A lineages. Isotyping revealed 2D8 mAb to be of the IgG2b/κ subclass, with an exceptionally high titer (1:20,480,000) as determined by ELISA. Given the essential role of NP in viral replication and host adaptation, this antibody offers a powerful platform for next-generation diagnostic assays capable of detecting a wide range of human and zoonotic influenza A viruses using a single reagent. Moreover, it holds potential for guiding the design of universal antiviral strategies targeting structurally constrained regions of the influenza virus. Our findings provide a valuable resource for advancing pan-influenza A interventions, with direct implications for improving pandemic preparedness and strengthening global influenza surveillance in both clinical and public health settings.

Sjögren's syndrome‐related dry eye (SSDE) is a severe dry eye subtype characterized by significant immune cell attacks on the lacrimal gland. However, delivering immunosuppressive drugs to the lacrimal glands for SSDE therapy safely and sustainably poses significant challenges in clinical practice. Herein, a ROS‐responsive microneedle patch with detachable functionality (CE‐MN) is developed to enable straightforward and minimally invasive administration to the lacrimal gland area by penetrating the periocular skin. CE‐MN is loaded with immunosuppressive cyclosporin A and anti‐inflammatory drug epigallocatechin gallate, the latter also serving as a cross‐linker for the microneedle matrix. Poly(N‐isopropylacrylamide‐co‐butylacrylate), a temperature‐sensitive polymer is utilized to fabricate separable layers that allow controlled detachment of the base from the needle, reducing patient discomfort. CE‐MN is capable of modulating drug release by responding to ROS, facilitating on‐demand release, and drug accumulation to the lacrimal gland. Compared to traditional eye drops, the CE‐MN patch facilitated long‐acting drug delivery to the lacrimal gland for more than 48 h, demonstrating potent anti‐inflammatory and immunosuppressive effects in an SSDE mouse model by scavenging ROS and inhibiting the proliferation of Th1, Th17 cells, and macrophages. Overall, this long‐acting microneedle patch potentially offers a novel clinical approach for treating SSDE and other ocular chronic diseases. A new strategy for constructing smart gel‐based MN patches is developed to overcome the insufficient drug delivery of eye drops to the lacrimal gland. The gel‐based MN patches achieved long‐acting drug release in a ROS‐responsive manner, and separable base in a temperature‐responsive manner. The MN patches exhibited superior efficacy to eye drops in dry‐eye mice.

Classical swine fever (CSF) caused by the classical swine fever virus (CSFV) is a highly contagious swine disease resulting in large economical losses worldwide. The viral envelope glycoprotein E2 and E rns are major targets for eliciting antibodies against CSFV in infected animals. In this report, the glycoprotein E2 and E rns were expressed using the baculovirus system and their protective immunity in rabbits were tested. Twenty CSFV seronegative rabbits were randomly divided into five groups. Each rabbit was intramuscularly immunized with CSFV-E2, CSFV-E rns , or their combination (CSFV-E2 + E rns ). Besides, a commercial CSFV vaccine (C-strain) and PBS were used as positive or negative controls, respectively. Four weeks after the second immunization, all the rabbits were challenged with 100 RID 50 of CSFV C-strain. High levels of CSFV E2-specific antibody, neutralizing antibody and cellular immune responses to CSFV were elicited in the rabbits inoculated with C-strain, CSFV-E2, and CSFV-E2 + E rns . And the rabbits inoculated with the three vaccines received complete protection against CSFV C-strain. However, no neutralizing antibody was detected in the E rns vaccinated rabbits and the rabbits exhibited fever typical of CSFV, suggesting the E rns alone is not able to induce a protective immune response. Taken together, while the E rns could not confer protection against CSFV, E2 and E2 + E rns could not only elicit humoral and cell-mediated immune responses but also confer complete protection against CSFV C-strain in rabbits.