The present study investigated acute and subchronic toxicity and safety pharmacology of modified pulsatilla granules (MPG) to provide a basis for a comprehensive understanding of MPG toxicity.  The results of acute toxicity testing showed that the median lethal dose of MPG was more than 5 000 mg kg^–1, suggesting that MPG was considered as practically non-toxic.  The subchronic toxicity study for 30 days was conducted by daily oral administration at doses of 375, 750 and 1 500 mg kg^–1 in Sprague-Dawley rats.  The results of subchronic toxicity study showed that the body weight and relative organ weight were not significantly changed by administration of MPG.  The clinical chemistry study showed that MPG could induce kidney and liver damages.  In histopathological, mild lesions in liver and kidney were also observed, suggesting that the liver and kidney might be potential target organs of MPG.  In the safety pharmacology study, MPG did not exhibited any side effects to rats in cardiovascular system, respiratory system and central nervous system.  These results suggested that MPG could be considered safe for veterinary use.

    CD8, a glycoprotein on the surface of T cells, is involved in the defense against viral infection and plays significant roles in antigen presentation and in the antiviral immune response. CD8 is composed of two chains. Of these, the CD8α chain was chosen for the detection because it involved in both the CD8αα homodimer and the CD8αβ heterodimer. Here, we established a double antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (DAS-ELISA) for specific detection of goose CD8α (goCD8α). The results showed that the optimal coated antibody and antigen dilutions were 1:50 (the antibody titer was 1:12 800) and 1:32 (0.3 ng mL^–1), respectively, while the optimal capture antibody and horseradish peroxidase (HRP)-labelled goat anti-rabbit IgG dilutions were 1:50 (the antibody titer was 1:51 200) and 1:4 000 (the antibody titer was 1:5 000), respectively. The optimal blocking buffer was 5% bovine serum albumin (BSA). The best incubating condition was overnight at 4°C, the best blocking time was 120 min and the best anti-capture antibody working time was 150 min. In addition, the minimum dose detectable by DAS-ELISA was 5×10–3 ng mL^–1. Most importantly, goCD8α expression levels in goose spleen mononuclear cells (MNCs) post-Goose parvoviruse (GPV) infection were found to be significantly up-regulated using the DAS-ELISA method, which was consistent with previous results obtained using real-time quantitative PCR. In conclusion, the DAS-ELISA method reported here is a novel, specific technique for the clinical detection of goCD8α.

In order to find an effective method of detecting thrips defect on green-peel citrus, a defect segmentation method was developed using a single threshold value based on combination of characteristic wavelengths principal component analysis (PCA) and B-spline lighting correction method in this study. At first, four characteristic wavelengths (523, 587, 700 and 768 nm) were obtained using PCA of Vis-NIR (visible and near-infrared) bands and analysis of weighting coefficients; secondarily, PCA was performed using characteristic wavelengths and the second principal component (PC2) was selected to classify images; then, B-spline lighting correction method was proposed to overcome the influence of lighting non-uniform on citrus when thrips defect was segmented; finally, thrips defect on citrus was extracted by global threshold segmentation and morphological image processing. The experimental results show that thrips defect in citrus can be detected with an accuracy of 96.5% by characteristic wavelengths PCA and B-spline lighting correction method. This study shows that thrips defect on green-peel citrus can be effectively identified using hyperspectral imaging technology.

In order to establish double antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (DAS-ELISA) for detection of duck or goose flavivirus, polyclonal antibody against the flavivirus strain JS804 in geese and monoclonal antibody against the E protein of flavivirus strain JS804 in geese were used as the capture antibody and detection antibody, respectively. The optimal dilution of the capture antibody and detecting antibody capable of detecting the flavivirus strain JS804 in geese were 1:3 200 and 1:160 in the check-board titration, respectively. The reaction time of sample was 1 h, and the optimal working dilution of HRP-labeled goat-anti-mouse IgG was 1:10 000. The positive standard value was 0.247 (OD450 nm). The geese flavivirus could be detected at a minimal concentration of 1.875 μg mL-1. The ELISA had no cross-reaction with Newcastle disease virus (NDV), Avian influenza virus (AIV), Infectious bronchitis virus (IBV), Infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV), Duck hepatitis virus (DHV), and Gosling plague virus (GPV). Twenty clinical samples were detected by the DAS-ELISA and RT-PCR respectively, with the agreement rate of 75%. The results revealed that the DAS-ELISA possessed favorable specificity and higher sensitivity, indicating a suitable method for rapid detection of the duck or goose flavivirus.