The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

A bacterium that causes a disease called scrub typhus -- a disease not previously reported in the United States -- has been detected in North Carolina, according to a new study. A bacterium that causes a disease called scrub typhus -- a disease not previously reported in the United States -- has been detected in North Carolina, according to a new study by researchers at North Carolina State University and UNC-Greensboro. The researchers stress that scrub typhus, which can cause fever, headache and body aches -- and can be fatal if left untreated by antibiotics -- has not yet been detected in animals or people in the state. The NC State researchers detected the bacterium -- the genus is Orientia in the family Rickettsiaceae -- at a high frequency while testing free living, larval (ready to bite) trombiculid mites, commonly called chiggers, in several different recreational parks in North Carolina. "We wanted to see if chiggers in the United States carried Orientia," said Loganathan Ponnusamy, an NC State principal research scholar in entomology and co-corresponding author of a paper that describes the research. "We haven't in the past had the diagnostic tools to test for this specific bacterium at the genus level." "We set a black tile on the ground in 10 different North Carolina state parks and picked up chiggers as they crossed the tile. Microbiome studies allowed us to characterize all the bacteria in the chiggers. One park showed a 90% positivity rate for the bacterium (nine out of 10 chiggers captured); another showed an 80% positivity rate (eight of 10 chiggers captured). Other parks showed positivity rates of just 10%." Trombiculid mites are only parasitic in their larval stage. They search for vertebrate hosts -- including humans -- to bite, Ponnusamy says. "Chiggers can spread bacteria to people or rodents when they bite but can also pass bacteria to future generations of mites through their eggs," he added. The researchers say that scrub typhus presents symptoms similar to those of Rocky Mountain spotted fever, a disease generally ascribed to tick bites. Scrub typhus is found more commonly in Asia and the Pacific, but in recent years has been detected in Africa and the Middle East. It is uncertain whether spread is caused by people or goods carrying chiggers from one place to another. "We don't know if this is a recent introduction into the state or if the bacterium has been here for years," said R. Michael Roe, William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Entomology at NC State and co-author of the paper. "We also don't know if the infected chiggers found in North Carolina actually will cause disease; this has to be determined in future work." "We also don't have information about whether the chigger infection rate is decreasing or increasing," said Kaiying Chen, a postdoctoral research scholar at NC State and lead author of the paper. The NC State and UNC-Greensboro researchers are resampling chiggers in the recreational park sites to see if the reported findings remain consistent. The paper appears in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. Other co-authors include Nicholas V. Travanty and Charles S. Apperson from North Carolina State University; Reuben Garshong and Gideon Wasserberg from the University of North Carolina Greensboro; and Dac Crossley from the Georgia Museum of Natural History. Funding was provided by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (grant no. 1R03AI166406-01); a grant from the Southeast Center for Agricultural Health and Injury Prevention, and from the Department of the Army, U.S. Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Natick Contracting Division, Ft Detrick MD. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position or the policy of the Government and no official endorsement should be inferred.

'Weed early and often' is the key to a productive garden. Interestingly, certain species of ants are also avid gardeners, a practice they've refined over 50 million years. They too weed their underground fungus gardens, but how they know what to weed out has been a mystery. Now, a multidisciplinary team of scientists report how ants distinguish the good fungus from the bad. 'Weed early and often' is the key to a productive garden. Interestingly, certain species of ants are also avid gardeners, a practice they've refined over 50 million years. They too weed their underground fungus gardens, but how they know what to weed out has been a mystery. Now, a multidisciplinary team of scientists report in PNASon June 15 how ants distinguish the good fungus from the bad. People rely on sight to identify weeds but ants grow fungus underground in the dark and must have other ways to sense undesirable garden denizens. A team led by Jonathan Klassen, Ph.D., at the University of Connecticut and Marcy Balunas, Ph.D., at the University of Michigan has found that the ants sniff out diseased fungus by detecting chemicals called peptaibols. The team focused on the ant species Trachymyrmex septentrionalis whose habitat follows the pine barren ecosystem from Long Island all the way south to East Texas. Trachymyrmex ants grow their fungus below ground and feed it fresh organic detritus. The fungus acts almost like an external gut for the ant colony; the fungus grows up and around the fresh food laid on top of it in honeycomb shapes, produces digested food for the ants as it grows, and then secretes waste. Klassen Lab graduate student Katie Kyle, a co-first author on the paper, experimentally infected ant nests with Trichoderma, a naturally occurring, disease-causing fungus that infects the ants' gardens and found that the ants began working overtime to remove the infection from the nests, increasing their waste output. Over the winter, while the ants were dormant, the team analyzed the fungal biomes of several different ant nests collected from different locations and found Trichoderma in all of them. Co-first author Sara Puckett, Ph.D., a recent graduate from the Balunas' UConn lab, prepared extracts of Trichoderma containing the organic compounds of the fungus to determine if the weeding was triggered by one or more of these compounds or simply by the presence of the pathogen's cells. "We were curious to see if the ants were weeding because of compounds produced by the infecting fungus," Balunas said. The team found the Trichoderma extract, when applied to the fungus garden, sent the ants into frenzied weeding activity just as actual Trichoderma infections had. Working with scientists from University of California, San Diego and University of North Carolina, Greensboro, they discovered the nests contained peptaibols, a family of compounds known to be produced by Trichoderma. However, finding which specific peptaibols were causing ant weeding proved more challenging since these extracts contained many compounds. The researchers tested pure peptaibols, including two new compounds called trichokindins VIII and IX. It turns out that all the peptaibols tested caused some level of ant weeding, a finding that implies it may not be one particular peptaibol but rather that the whole suite of peptaibols can induce the ants to weed their garden. "This suite of Trichoderma compounds inducing ant behavior is in contrast to many other natural products whose activity can often be attributed to one compound," Balunas says. Although their data support peptaibols as a signal to weed, it's not clear what exactly the ants are perceiving. It may be that the invading Trichoderma fungus produces the peptaibols and the ants detect them and then weed, note the researchers. Or perhaps the ants are detecting a secondary response from the fungus garden itself. The next step is to figure out those details of ant-fungus communication, Klassen says. "Maybe the fungus is signaling 'I'm sick'. Maybe the fungus is detecting the peptaibols. We need to flesh out the chain of signaling," Klassen says. The findings highlight one of the few known systems where an animal responds to a disease of its beneficial symbiotic partner instead of a disease of its own body, a phenomenon that Balunas and Klassen are calling an extended defense response, and one that they look forward to continuing to tease apart.

Senior Care Business Owner in Burlington and Chapel Hill Adds to Her Portfolio, Acquires Always Best Care of Greensboro and High Point ROSEVILLE, Calif., Oct. 19, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Always Best Care Senior Services, one of the leading senior care franchise systems in the United States, announced today that existing franchisee Samantha Loy has expanded her coverage area once again, acquiring the existing territory of Always Best Care of Greensboro and High Point, North Carolina. The agency has been successfully serving residents of Jamestown, Summerfield and Guilford Counties since 2020, and Loy looks forward to continuing to provide exceptional senior care services to these communities. Loy has been immersed in the Always Best Care business since 2012 when she began working at her mother's Burlington location, which is now Always Best Care of Alamance. When the opportunity arose to carry on the family business by purchasing that territory in 2017, she didn't think twice. In 2019, Loy expanded her territory by acquiring Always Best Care of Chapel Hill & Durham. Along the way, she has built a team of over 170 caregivers serving seniors throughout Central North Carolina. "Samantha has achieved impressive business growth in a short time and has done it while providing unparalleled service to her clients and a positive, caring work environment for her employees," said Jake Brown, CEO of Always Best Care Senior Services. "She is making a difference in the areas she serves, including ongoing support of local charitable organizations such as Meals on Wheels and the Alzheimer's Association. We look forward to seeing what she can accomplish next." Loy graduated from the University of North Carolina Greensboro and is happy to be back in her beloved college town. She said, "Owning a senior home care business is very rewarding; it's an honor to be able to care for and serve those in need in my communities. I'm looking forward to sharing our valuable caregiving resources and passion for helping others in one of my favorite cities." Always Best Care is one of the nation's leading providers of non-medical in-home care and assisted living referral services, with skilled home health care in limited markets. The company delivers its services through an international network of more than 225 independently owned and operated franchise territories throughout the United States and Canada. By working with case managers, social workers, discharge planners, doctors, and families, Always Best Care franchise owners provide affordable, comprehensive solutions that can be specifically matched to meet a client's particular physical or social needs. For a care evaluation or additional information on services available through Always Best Care of Greensboro and High Point, call 336-270-4352 or visit . About Always Best Care Founded in 1996, Always Best Care Senior Services is based on the belief that having the right people for the right level of care means peace of mind for the client and family. Always Best Care has been assisting seniors with a wide range of conditions and personal needs for over 25 years and currently provides thousands of hours of care every year. Always Best Care also offers exclusive programs such as Always in Touch, Balance Tracking System and remote patient monitoring. For more information regarding Always Best Care's solutions, visit . CONTACT: Nicole Hunnicutt Fish Consulting 404-558-4108 [email protected] SOURCE Always Best Care