The American mink (Neovison vison) is a semiaquatic species of mustelid native to North America. It's an important animal for the fur industry. Many efforts have been made to locate genes influencing fur quality and color, but this search has been impeded by the lack of a reference genome. Here we present the first draft genome of mink. In our study, two mink individuals were sequenced by Illumina sequencing with 797 Gb sequence generated. Assembly yielded 7,175 scaffolds with an N50 of 6.3 Mb and length of 2.4 Gb including gaps. Repeat sequences constitute around 31% of the genome, which is lower than for dog and cat genomes. The alignments of mink, ferret and dog genomes help to illustrate the chromosomes rearrangement. Gene annotation identified 21,053 protein-coding sequences present in mink genome. The reference genome's structure is consistent with the microsatellite-based genetic map. Mapping of well-studied genes known to be involved in coat quality and coat color, and previously located fur quality QTL provide new knowledge about putative candidate genes for fur traits. The draft genome shows great potential to facilitate genomic research towards improved breeding for high fur quality animals and strengthen our understanding on evolution of Carnivora.
While most countries in the Western Pacific Region (WPR) had similar trajectories of COVID-19 from January to May, their implementations of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) differed by transmission stages. To offer a better understanding for an implementation of multidisciplinary policies in COVID-19 control, we compared the impact of NPIs by assessing the transmissibility and severity of COVID-19 in different phases of the epidemic during the first five months in WPR. In this study, we estimated the piecewise instantaneous reproduction number (R t ) and the reporting delay-adjusted case-fatality ratio (dCFR) of COVID-19 in seven WPR jurisdictions: Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Japan, Malaysia, Shanghai, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. According to the results, implementing NPIs was associated with an apparent reduction of the piecewise R t in two epidemic waves in general. However, large cluster outbreaks raised the piecewise R t to a high level. We also observed relaxing the NPIs could result in an increase of R t . The estimated dCFR ranged from 0.09% to 1.59% among the jurisdictions, except in Japan where an estimate of 5.31% might be due to low testing efforts. To conclude, in conjunction with border control measures to reduce influx of imported cases which might cause local outbreaks, other NPIs including social distancing measures along with case finding by rapid tests are also necessary to prevent potential large cluster outbreaks and transmissions from undetected cases. A comparatively lower CFR may reflect the health system capacity of these jurisdictions. In order to keep track of sustained disease transmission due to resumption of economic activities, a close monitoring of disease transmissibility is recommended in the relaxation phase. The report of transmission of SARS CoV-2 to pets in Hong Kong and to mink in farm outbreaks highlight for the control of COVID-19 and emerging infectious disease, the One Health approach is critical in understanding and accounting for how human, animals and environment health are intricately connected.
Inhibitors of histone deacetylases (HDACs) are a promising class of anticancer agents that have an effect on gene regulation. The naturally occurring cyclic depsipeptide FK228 containing disulfide and Largazole possessing thioester functionalities act as pro-drugs and share the same HDAC inhibition mechanism in cell. Inspired from these facts, we have reported bicyclic tetrapeptide disulfide HDAC inhibitors resembling FK228 with potent activity and enhanced selectivity. In the present study, we report the design and synthesis of several mono and bicyclic tetrapeptide thioester HDAC inhibitors that share the inhibition mechanism similar to Largazole. Most of the compounds showed HDAC1 and HDAC4 inhibition and p21 promoting activity in nanomolar ranges. Among these the monocyclic peptides 1, 2 and bicyclic peptide, 4 are notable demanding more advanced research to be promising anticancer drug candidates.