Signatures of selection reveal candidate genes involved in production traits in Chinese crossbred buffaloes.

Identification of selection signature is important for a better understanding of genetic mechanisms that affect phenotypic differentiation in livestock. However, the genome-wide selection responses have not been investigated for the production traits of Chinese crossbred buffaloes. In this study, an SNP data set of 133 buffaloes (Chinese crossbred buffalo, n = 45; Chinese local swamp buffalo, n = 88) was collected from the Dryad Digital Repository database (https://datadryad.org/stash/). Population genetics analysis showed that these buffaloes were divided into the following 2 groups: crossbred buffalo and swamp buffalo. The crossbred group had higher genetic diversity than the swamp group. Using 3 complementary statistical methods (integrated haplotype score, cross population extended haplotype homozygosity, and composite likelihood ratio), a total of 31 candidate selection regions were identified in the Chinese crossbred population. Here, within these candidate regions, 25 genes were under the putative selection. Among them, several candidate genes were reported to be associated with production traits. In addition, we identified 13 selection regions that overlapped with bovine QTLs that were mainly involved in milk production and composition traits. These results can provide useful insights regarding the selection response for production traits of Chinese crossbred buffalo, as identified candidate genes influence production performance.

[The influence of XRCC1 gene polymorphism on the prognosis and safety of stage â ¢ patients with colorectal cancer who received oxaliplatin based adjuvant chemotherapy].

Objective: To investigate the influence of X-ray repair cross complementing 1 (XRCC1) gene polymorphism on the prognosis and safety of stage Ⅲ patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) who received oxaliplatin based adjuvant chemotherapy. Methods: A total of 218 stage Ⅲ patients with CRC after R0 resection and received oxaliplatin based adjuvant chemotherapy in the department of gastrointestinal surgery of the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University from March 2012 to December 2019 were included and the baseline characteristics were collected. There were 125 male and 93 female patients, aged from 18 to 78 years. Peripheral blood and peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) specimens of the colorectal cancer patients were preserved for genotyping of XRCC1 gene genetic variation and mRNA expression of XRCC1, respectively. The association between genotype status and prognosis was analyzed by Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. And the correlation between genotype status and adverse reactions was performed with χ2 test. Results: The median follow-up time were 4.9 (0.3-7.3) years. The median disease-free survival (DFS) of the 218 patients with CRC was 4.4 years and the median overall survival (OS) was 5.5 years. The prevalence of rs1799782 in XRCC1 gene among the 218 patients was: GG genotype 62.4% (136/218), GA genotype 33.0% (72/218) and AA genotype 4.6% (10/218), minor allele frequency was 0.21. And the distribution frequencies of the three genotypes were in accordance with the hardy-weinberg equilibrium (P=0.905). GA and AA genotypes were merged in the subsequent analysis. The median DFS [M (95%CI)] of GG genotype and GA/AA genotype was 5.2 (4.5-5.9) years and 3.8 (3.2-4.4) years, which was statistically significant (χ²=6.943, P=0.008). Furthermore, the median OS [M (95%CI)] of the two genotypes were 6.0 (5.3-6.7) years and 4.5 (3.9-5.1) years, which was statistically significant (χ²=5.538, P=0.010). The mRNA expression of XRCC1 in PBMC of the patients with GA/AA genotypes was 3.8±0.6,which was significantly higher than that of the GG genotype patients(2.8±0.7) (t=6.140, P<0.001). Conclusion: The prognosis of patients with CRC who received oxaliplatin based adjuvant chemotherapy may be influenced by XRCC1 rs1799782 through mediating the mRNA expression of XRCC1.

Basic fibroblast growth factor upregulates expression of growth hormone gene through extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 in GH4 cells.

Basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) is reported to not only play multifunctions in pituitary differentiation and tumor formation, stimulating cell differentiation or proliferation, also stimulate pituitary to secret prolactin, growth hormone (GH) and thyroid stimulating hormone, although obvious effect on growth hormone only responded to high-dose bFGF. Since it is well documented that both bFGF and GH correlate closely to tumorigenesis, development and metastasis, so it is necessary to reveal the relationship between the cytokines. In the present report we investigated the effect of bFGF on transcription level of GH gene in GH4 rat pituitary cells as well as the regulatory mechanism with real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and western blotting. We observed a significant expressional increase of GH gene in GH4 cells stimulated by bFGF, meanwhile phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) was also found in the cells. Further investigation unveiled that PD98059, a specific inhibitor of ERK1/2 signaling pathway markedly impaired the transcriptional increment of GH gene induced by bFGF in the pituitary cells, which indicates that bFGF upregulates GH gene expression through ERK1/2 signaling pathway in GH4 cells. Results may be helpful to elaborate roles of the two cytokines on tumor (Fig. 3, Ref. 25).

Myostatin downregulates the expression of basic fibroblast growth factor gene in HeLa cells.

Basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF or FGF-2), a potent tumorigenic cytokine, improves cells proliferation and angiogenesis in tumor and also plays vital roles in tumor growth, metastasis as well as prognosis. Screening and application of effective cytokines against bFGF tumorigenic activity would be helpful to oncologic therapy. Myostatin, a member of transforming growth factor ß superfamily, recently showed an antitumor activity and was reported to induce HeLa cells apoptosis through mitochondrion pathway. The above data raised our assumption that expression level of endogenous bFGF gene may be suppressed by exogenous myostatin in myostatin-treated HeLa cells. To test the hypothesis, myostatin was employed to stimulate HeLa cells and expressional level of endogenous bFGF gene in HeLa cells was detected with real-time RT-PCR and ELISA. Results of the suppressed expression level of bFGF gene in Hela cells implied that myostatin may be regarded as an effective cytokine against bFGF to treat certain cancers (Fig. 3, Ref. 26).

Impact of human activities on subaqueous topographic change in Lingding Bay of the Pearl River estuary, China, during 1955-2013.

Estuaries have been sites of intensive human activities during the past century. Tracing the evolution of subaqueous topography in estuaries on a decadal timescale enables us to understand the effects of human activities on estuaries. Bathymetric data from 1955 to 2010 show that land reclamation decreased the subaqueous area of Lingding Bay, in the Pearl River estuary, by ~170 km2 and decreased its water volume by 615 × 106 m3, representing a net decrease of 11.2 × 106 m3 per year and indicating the deposition of approximately 14.5 Mt/yr of sediment in Lingding Bay during that period. Whereas Lingding Bay was mainly governed by natural processes with slight net deposition before 1980, subsequent dredging and large port engineering projects changed the subaqueous topography of the bay by shallowing its shoals and deepening its troughs. Between 2012 and 2013, continuous dredging and a surge of sand excavation resulted in local changes in water depth of ± 5 m/yr, far exceeding the magnitude of natural topographic evolution in Lingding Bay. Reclamation, dredging, and navigation-channel projects removed 8.4 Mt/yr of sediment from Lingding Bay, representing 29% of the sediment input to the bay, and these activities have increased recently.

[Production of transgenic lamb integrated with modified human anti-trypsin gene].

This experiment is to produce the human mAAT(modified anti-trypsin) which cures the emphysema specifically through mammalian galactophore of transgenic goat. 56 goats were selected as donor for superovulation by FSF + LH microinjection in this experiment. The pronucleic embryos were injected with human mAAT gene after fertilization in vivo, and transferred to the donors or receptors directly. The superovulation was better in March and May than in December with the number of ovulation of 19.50, 21.70 and 16.06, and number of fertilized embryos of 4.31, 6.48 and 3.57 per-animal respectively. The pregnant rates were 18.18% and 25% respectively after transferred to donors and receptors with natural estrus. The donors also can be used as the embryo receptor with no remarkable decrease of pregnant rate. 29 lamb were labored. 4 positive transgenic lamb were checked by PCR, PCR-Southern and Southern analysis. The integrated efficiency of foreign DNA was 13.79% with microinjection of high copy number of foreign DNA fragment.