Transcriptome in Liver of Periparturient Dairy Cows Differs between Supplementation of Rumen-Protected Niacin and Rumen-Protected Nicotinamide.

To investigate the difference between rumen-protected niacin (RPN) and rumen-protected nicotinamide (RPM) in the transcriptome of genes relating to the lipid metabolism of the liver of periparturient dairy cows, 10 healthy Chinese Holstein cows were randomly divided into two groups and fed diets supplemented with 18.4 g/d RPN or 18.7 g/d RPM, respectively. The experiment lasted from 14 days before to 21 days after parturition. Liver biopsies were taken 21 days postpartum for transcriptomic sequencing. In addition, human LO2 cells were cultured in a medium containing 1.6 mmol/L of non-esterified fatty acids and 1 mmol/L niacin (NA) or 2 mmol/L nicotinamide (NAM) to verify the expression of the 10 genes selected from the transcriptomic analysis of the liver biopsies. The expression of a total of 9837 genes was detected in the liver biopsies, among which 1210 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified, with 579 upregulated and 631 downregulated genes. These DEGs were associated mainly with lipid metabolism, oxidative stress, and some inflammatory pathways. Gene ontology (GO) enrichment analysis showed that 355 DEGs were enriched in 38 GO terms. The differences in the expression of these DEGs between RPN and RPM were predominantly related to the processes of steroid catabolism, steroid hydroxylase, monooxygenase activity, oxidoreductase activity, hemoglobin binding, and ferric iron binding, which are involved mainly in lipid anabolism and redox processes. The expressions of FADS2, SLC27A6, ARHGAP24, and THRSP in LO2 cells were significantly higher (p < 0.05) while the expressions of BCO2, MARS1, GARS1, S100A12, AGMO, and OSBPL11 were significantly lower (p < 0.05) on the NA treatment compared to the NAM treatment, indicating that NA played a role in liver metabolism by directly regulating fatty acid anabolism and transport, inflammatory factor expression, and oxidative stress; and NAM functioned more as a precursor of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD, coenzyme I) and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADP, coenzyme II) to participate indirectly in biological processes such as ether lipid metabolism, cholesterol metabolism, energy metabolism, and other processes.

Synthesis of Selenium Nanoparticles and Their Effect on Pancreatic Functions and Acute Pancreatitis in Rats.

Acute pancreatitis (AP) have been documented to have severe impact on pancreatic function. Frequent incidence of AP can result in chronic pancreatitis and thereby it can increase the probability of pancreatic cancers. This study intended to examine the effect of selenium nanoparticles (Se-NPs) synthesized from Coleus forskohlii leaf extract on pancreatic function and AP in rat. Primarily, Se-NPs was fabricated using the C. forskohlii leaf extract. The synthesized nanomaterial was characterized through UV-visible, XRD, and FTIR spectroscopies. Notably, the zeta potential of Se-NPs was found to be -32.8 mV with a polydispersity index (PDI) of 0.18. Morphological analysis on SEM unveiled the spherical shape of Se-NP with an average particle size of 12.69 nm. Strikingly, cytotoxicity analysis on pancreatic cancer and normal cells unveiled the concentration-dependent toxicity profile. However, IC 50 value is lower in normal pancreatic cell lines in comparison to pancreatic cancer cells lines. Assessment of Se-NPs on AP rats revealed the positive impact of Se-NPs. It effectively decreased the amount of lipase, amylase, IL-1ß, MDA, NO, and Bcl-2 while increased the glucose, insulin, HOMA-ß and antioxidant potential in AP rats. In addition, an evaluation of Se-NPs in the pancreatic functions revealed the non-harmful effect of Se-NPs.

Xiaoqinglong decoction suppresses childhood cough variant asthma and inhibited the body inflammatory response by regulating IL-6/STAT3 signalling pathway.

Xiaoqinglong decoction (XQLD) is widely used clinically in the treatment of childhood cough variant asthma (CVA). However, its potential mechanism is still unknown. In the present study, the authors investigate the biological network and signalling pathway of XQLD in treatment of childhood CVA using network pharmacology-based analysis and experimental validation. By using the Bioinformatics Analysis Tool Molecular Mechanism of Traditional Chinese Medicine (BATMAN-TCM) database, the authors confirmed the correlation between XQLD and asthma, and the authors screened 1338 potential target genes of Mahuang and Guizhi, the most active herbs in XQLD. By overlapping "Childhood asthma-related genes" of DisGeNET database, the authors identified 58 intersecting genes of Childhood asthma and 1338 target genes of Mahuang and Guizhi. The intersecting genes were used to construct the protein-to-protein interaction and performed Gene Ontology (GO) functional and the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway enrichment analyses. Gene Ontology enrichment analysis demonstrated 359 Biological Process terms, 16 Cellular Component terms, and 26 Molecular Function terms. Meantime, 75 terms of Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes signalling pathway were involved in enrichment analysis. These candidates showed a significant correlation with inflammatory response and positive regulation of tyrosine phosphorylation of STAT protein. In addition, XQLD treatment significantly upregulated serum interferon-γ expression, and downregulated serum interlukin-6 expression of CVA mice. XQLD treatment significantly inhibited phosphorylation of STAT3 in bronchial-lung tissues. Our data suggest that XQLD effectively alleviated bronchial-lung tissue damage in CVA mice and inhibited the body inflammatory response by regulating interlukin-6/STAT3 signalling pathway.

Peanut meal extract fermented with Bacillus natto attenuates physiological and behavioral deficits in a D-galactose-induced aging rat model.

Our previous studies have shown that the nutritional properties of peanut meal after fermentation are markedly improved. In this study, in order to facilitate the further utilization of peanut meal, we investigated the effects of its fermentation extract by Bacillus natto (FE) on cognitive ability, antioxidant activity of brain, and protein expression of hippocampus of aging rats induced by D-galactose. Seventy-two female SD rats aged 4-5 months were randomly divided into six groups: normal control group (N), aging model group (M), FE low-dose group (FL), FE medium-dose group (FM), FE high-dose group (FH) and vitamin E positive control group (Y). Morris water maze (MWM) test was performed to evaluate their effects on learning and memory ability in aging rats. SOD activity and malondialdehyde (MDA) content of brain, HE staining and the expression of γ-aminobutyric acid receptor 1 (GABABR1) and N-methyl-D-aspartic acid 2B receptor (NMDAR2B) in the hippocampus of rats were measured. The results show that FE supplementation can effectively alleviate the decrease of thymus index induced by aging, decrease the escape latency of MWM by 66.06%, brain MDA by 28.04%, hippocampus GABABR1 expression by 7.98%, and increase brain SOD by 63.54% in aging model rats. This study provides evidence for its anti-aging effects and is a research basis for potential nutritional benefits of underutilized food by-products.

Effects of peanut meal extracts fermented by Bacillus natto on the growth performance, learning and memory skills and gut microbiota modulation in mice.

Recent studies have demonstrated that the nutritional properties of peanut meal (PM) can be improved after being fermented. The assessment of fermented PM has been reported to be limited to various physical and chemical evaluations in vitro. In the present study, PM was fermented by Bacillus natto to explore the effects of fermented PM extract (FE) on growth performance, learning and memory ability and intestinal microflora in mice. Ninety newly weaned male Kunming (KM) mice were randomly divided into seven groups: normal group (n 20), low-dose FE group (n 10), middle-dose FE group (MFE) (n 10), high-dose FE group (HFE) (n 20), unfermented extraction group (n 10), model group (10) and natural recovery group (10). Learning and memory skills were performed by the Morris water maze (MWM) test, and the variation in gut microbiota (GM) composition was assessed by 16S rDNA amplicon sequencing. The results show that HFE remarkably improved the growth performance in mice. In the MWM test, escape latency was shortened in both MFE and HFE groups, while the percentage of time, distance in target quadrant and the number crossing over the platform were significantly increased in the HFE group. Moreover, the FE played a preventive role in the dysbacteriosis of mice induced by antibiotic and increased the richness and species evenness of GM in mice.

Innate positive chemotaxis to paeonal from highly attractive Chinese medicinal herbs in the cigarette beetle, Lasioderma serricorne.

Lasioderma serricorne, also known as cigarette beetle, can exploit a wide variety of stored materials as foods, but it is particularly common on tobacco and herbs. This beetle is a dominant pest species of stored Chinese medicinal materials (CMMs) causing high economic damages, making effective control strategies urgently needed. Behavioural manipulation is an important component of Integrated Pest Management. To the best of our knowledge, plant-borne volatile organic compounds (VOCs) have never been explored to develop lures for managing L. serricorne. In this study, the behavioural responses of L. serricorne to VOCs from four selected CMMs (Euphorbia kansui, Aconitum carmichaelii, Eucommia ulmoides and Pinellia ternata) were studied and their components analysed. Then, the olfactory responses of L. serricorne to the most abundant VOC identified in the preferred CMM, i.e., paeonal, was tested. L. serricorne showed significant differences in its preferences for the VOCs from the four CMMs, i.e, E. kansui > A. carmichaelii > E. ulmoides > P. ternata. From the VOCs of E. kansui, A. carmichaelii, E. ulmoides, and P. ternata, 77, 74, 56, and 81 molecules, were identified, respectively. Paeonal (23.5%), junipene (17.2%), hexanal (17.1%), and benzeneacetonitrile (14.0%) were the most abundant, respectively. Since paeonal dominated the VOC spectrum of the most preferred CMM, this compound was selected for further studies. L. serricorne showed significant positive responses to paeonal tested at various doses, with the most attractive ones being 100 µg and 500 µg. Our findings shed light on the olfactory cues routing the food searching behaviour in the cigarette beetle, providing important information on how L. serricorne targets particular CMMs. The high attractiveness of paeonal at low doses tested here may be exploited further to develop novel monitoring and control tools (e.g., lure-and-kill strategies) against this important stored product pest.