Effect of yeast culture supplementation on blood characteristics, body development, intestinal morphology, and enzyme activities in geese.

The objective of this experiment is to evaluate the effects of yeast culture (YC) supplementation on blood characteristics, body size, carcass characteristics, organ weights, intestinal morphology, and enzyme activities. Five groups of geese were randomly assigned to five dietary treatments: the basal diet (control) and basal diets plus 0.5%, 1.0%, 2.0%, or 4.0% YC. Compared with the controls, YC supplementation at 0.5% and 1.0% increased the serum total protein (TP), albumin (ALB), and globulin (GLO) and decreased the uric acid and creatine kinase (CK) contents (p < 0.05). YC supplementation at 2.0% and 4.0% increased the CK, growth hormone, catalase and glutathione reductase contents, and relative proventriculus weights, and decreased the TP, ALB, and GLO contents, relative liver, gizzard, jejunum, ileum, and thymus weights (p < 0.05). YC supplementation at 2.0% improved fossil bone length, breast muscle percentage, jejunal villus height, ileal and jejunal villus height/crypt depth ratios, pepsin, lipase, amylase and pancreatic trypsin activities, and decreased abdominal fat percentage (p < 0.05). Furthermore, YC inclusion increased the body slope length (linear, p = 0.002; quadratic, p = 0.02), breast width (quadratic, p = 0.02), ileal (linear, p = 0.04; quadratic, p = 0.01) and duodenal villus height (cubic, p = 0.04), and decreased the relative gizzard (quadratic, p = 0.04) and thymus (linear, p = 0.002; quadratic, p = 0.02; cubic, p = 0.02) weights, liver (linear, p = 0.002; quadratic, p = 0.02), and serum (linear, p = 0.006; quadratic, p = 0.03) malondialdehyde contents, and jejunal crypt depth (quadratic, p = 0.03). The findings indicated that the YC supplementation had a positive effect on the growth and development of geese, with 2% YC being the most effective.

Improved de novo genome assembly and analysis of the Chinese cucurbit Siraitia grosvenorii, also known as monk fruit or luo-han-guo.

Background: Luo-han-guo (Siraitia grosvenorii), also called monk fruit, is a member of the Cucurbitaceae family. Monk fruit has become an important area for research because of the pharmacological and economic potential of its noncaloric, extremely sweet components (mogrosides). It is also commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine for the treatment of lung congestion, sore throat, and constipation. Recently, a single reference genome became available for monk fruit, assembled from 36.9x genome coverage reads via Illumina sequencing platforms. This genome assembly has a relatively short (34.2 kb) contig N50 length and lacks integrated annotations. These drawbacks make it difficult to use as a reference in assembling transcriptomes and discovering novel functional genes. Findings: Here, we offer a new high-quality draft of the S. grosvenorii genome assembled using 31 Gb (∼73.8x) long single molecule real time sequencing reads and polished with ∼50 Gb Illumina paired-end reads. The final genome assembly is approximately 469.5 Mb, with a contig N50 length of 432,384 bp, representing a 12.6-fold improvement. We further annotated 237.3 Mb of repetitive sequence and 30,565 consensus protein coding genes with combined evidence. Phylogenetic analysis showed that S. grosvenorii diverged from members of the Cucurbitaceae family approximately 40.9 million years ago. With comprehensive transcriptomic analysis and differential expression testing, we identified 4,606 up-regulated genes in the early fruit compared to the leaf, a number of which were linked to metabolic pathways regulating fruit development and ripening. Conclusions: The availability of this new monk fruit genome assembly, as well as the annotations, will facilitate the discovery of new functional genes and the genetic improvement of monk fruit.

De novo assembly and comparative analysis of root transcriptomes from different varieties of Panax ginseng C. A. Meyer grown in different environments.

Panax ginseng C. A. Meyer is an important traditional herb in eastern Asia. It contains ginsenosides, which are primary bioactive compounds with medicinal properties. Although ginseng has been cultivated since at least the Ming dynasty to increase production, cultivated ginseng has lower quantities of ginsenosides and lower disease resistance than ginseng grown under natural conditions. We extracted root RNA from six varieties of fifth-year P. ginseng cultivars representing four different growth conditions, and performed Illumina paired-end sequencing. In total, 163,165,706 raw reads were obtained and used to generate a de novo transcriptome that consisted of 151,763 contigs (76,336 unigenes), of which 100,648 contigs (66.3%) were successfully annotated. Differential expression analysis revealed that most differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were upregulated (246 out of 258, 95.3%) in ginseng grown under natural conditions compared with that grown under artificial conditions. These DEGs were enriched in gene ontology (GO) terms including response to stimuli and localization. In particular, some key ginsenoside biosynthesis-related genes, including HMG-CoA synthase (HMGS), mevalonate kinase (MVK), and squalene epoxidase (SE), were upregulated in wild-grown ginseng. Moreover, a high proportion of disease resistance-related genes were upregulated in wild-grown ginseng. This study is the first transcriptome analysis to compare wild-grown and cultivated ginseng, and identifies genes that may produce higher ginsenoside content and better disease resistance in the wild; these genes may have the potential to improve cultivated ginseng grown in artificial environments.

[Effects of icariin on expression of glucose regulated protein 78 in vascular smooth muscle cell induced by homocysteine].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effects of icariin on the GRP78 mRNA expression of vascular smooth muscle cell in vitro and to elucidate the anti-atherosclerosis mechanism of icariin. METHOD: The model was established by using half cystine in vitro. The vascular smooth muscle cell had been incubated with various concentrations of icariin for 48 hours. The apoptosis rate was detected by flow cytometry using Annexin/PI-staining and GRP78 mRNA expression was tested by RT- PCR. These differentially expressed fragments were cloned, identified and sequenced. RESULT: Icariin at concentrations of 0.2 and 0.4 mg x L(-1) obviously promoted the apoptosis of vascular smooth muscle cell. The early apoptosis rate was raised magnificently in a dose dependent manner compared with that of the half cystine group (P < 0.01). Furthermore, the fragment, 648 bp, was similar to the gene of glucose regulated protein GRP78 from VSMC. Icariin could magnificently increase the GRP78 mRNA expression compared with that of the halfcystine group (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: The anti-atherosclerosis mechanism of icariin might be partly due to the promotion of apoptosis and the promotion of the GRP78 mRNA expression of vascular smooth muscle cell.