Hair follicle regional specificity in different parts of bay Mongolian horse by histology and transcriptional profiling.

BACKGROUND: Different morphological structures of hairs having properties like defense and camouflage help animals survive in the wild environment. Horse is one of the rare kinds of animals with complex hair phenotypes in one individual; however, knowledge of horse hair follicle is limited in literature and their molecular basis remains unclear. Therefore, the investigation of horse hair follicle morphogenesis and pigmentogenesis attracts considerable interest. RESULT: Histological studies revealed the morphology and pigment synthesis of hair follicles are different in between four different parts (mane, dorsal part, tail, and fetlock) of the bay Mongolian horse. Hair follicle size, density, and cycle are strongly associated with the activity of alkaline phosphatase (ALP). We observed a great difference in gene expression between the mane, tail, and fetlock, which had a greater different gene expression pattern compared with the dorsal part through transcriptomics. The development of the hair follicle in all four parts was related to angiogenesis, stem cells, Wnt, and IGF signaling pathways. Pigmentogenesis-related pathways were involved in their hair follicle pigment synthesis. CONCLUSIONS: Hair follicle morphology and the activity of ALP differ among four body parts in bay Mongolian horse. Hair follicles of the different body parts of the are not synchronized in their cycle stages. GO terms show a regional specificity pattern between different skin parts of the bay Mongolian horse. These results provide an insight into the understanding of the biological mechanism of the hair follicle in other mammals.

Cooking Delicacy with Ice-Nanobubble Isolation Switches Stewing to 'BBQ'.

The key role of ice in cooking has been neglected. Here, we found negatively charged bulk nanobubbles (BNBs: average size ~60 nm and zeta potential <-20 mV) can be generated in ice-melted water through freeze/thaw-induced cavitation when we studied a local delicacy, 'ice-stewed mutton'. Freeze/thaw-induced BNBs are so robust that they can, in turn, isolate food from water; in this way, they protect and enhance the delicacy by protecting protein structures and preventing flavorful components from being lost. In comparison to cooking with ordinary water, cooking with ice can switch 'stewing' to 'BBQ', which has been proved experimentally via diverse characterization from the nano to micro scale. This study not only provides a novel mechanism for ice-based cooking but also might shed light on the design of potential applications of BNBs in chemical engineering and biomedicine.

Transcriptomes reveal microRNAs and mRNAs in different photoperiods influencing cashmere growth in goat.

Cashmere goat has a typical characteristic in seasonal growth of cashmere. Studies have shown that one of the main factors affecting the cyclical growth of the cashmere is the photoperiod, however, its molecular mechanism remains unclear. Inner Mongolia Arbas cashmere goat was used to reveal the mRNA-microRNA regulatory mechanisms of cashmere growth in different photoperiod. Skin samples from cashmere goats under light control (short photoperiod) and normal conditions (long photoperiod) were collected. Sequencing was performed after RNA extraction. The differentially expressed miRNA and mRNA expression profiles were successfully constructed. We found 56 significantly differentially expressed known mRNAs (P<0.01) and 14 microRNAs (P<0.05). The association analysis of the microRNAs and mRNAs showed that two differentially expressed miRNAs might be targeted by six differentially expressed genes. Targeting relationships of these genes and miRNAs are revealed and verified. In all, the light control technology provides a new way to promote cashmere growth. Our results provide some references in the cashmere growth and development.

Creating de novo peptide-based bioactivities: from assembly to origami.

DNA origami has created complex structures of various spatial dimensions. However, their versatility in terms of function is limited due to the lower number of the intrinsic building blocks, i.e. nucleotides, compared with the number of amino acids. Therefore, protein origami has been proposed and demonstrated to precisely fabricate artificial functional nanostructures. Despite their hierarchical folded structures, chain-like peptides and DNA share obvious similarities in both structures and properties, especially in terms of chain hybridization; therefore, replacing DNA with peptides to create bioactivities not only has high theoretical feasibility but also provides a new bottom-up synthetic strategy. However, designing functionalities with tens to hundreds of peptide chains using the similar principle of DNA origami has not been reported, although the origami strategy holds great potential to generate more complex bioactivities. In this perspective review, we have reviewed the recent progress in and highlighted the advantages of peptide assembly and origami on the orientation of artificially created bioactivities. With the great potential of peptide origami, we appeal to develop user-friendly softwares in combination with artificial intelligence.

Sequence-Dependent Tyrosine-Containing Peptide Nanoassemblies for Sensing Tyrosinase and Melanoma.

Tyrosine-containing peptide nanoassemblies have received tremendous attention because of their potential applications in biomedicine and nanomaterial fields. However, a current outstanding challenge is to direct the equilibrium between oxidative polymerization of precursors and the noncovalent assembly to precisely tune their specific nanostructures and functionalities through the rational design of peptide sequences. With a simple library of tripeptides containing tyrosine, glycine, and lysine, here we demonstrate how amino acid sequence encodes the property of tripeptide nanoassemblies by modulating the enzymatic oxidation of tyrosinase with the accompanied self-assembly, and thus select the pathways toward fluorescent or melanin-like nanoassemblies. The fluorescence of tripeptide nanoassemblies has been demonstrated in sensing both tyrosinase and melanoma. Our findings will provide inspiration of peptide sequence design for generating the complex bioactive peptide nanomaterials for biomedical applications.

Cysteamine-supplemented diet for cashmere goats: A potential strategy to inhibit rumen biohydrogenation and enhance plasma antioxidant capacity.

Cysteamine (CS), as a feed supplement, can increase the level of growth hormone (GH) in the blood, promote animal growth. However, little attention has been paid to the effects of CS on the rumen microbiome and metabolic profile in cashmere goats. This study aimed to assess the effects of rumen microbiota, metabolites, and plasma antioxidative capacity induced by CS supplementation in cashmere goats. We selected 30 Inner Mongolia white cashmere goat ewes (aged 18 months), and randomly separate the goats into three groups (n = 10 per group) to experiment for 40 days. Oral 0 (control group, CON), 60 (low CS, LCS), or 120 mg/kg BW-1 (high CS, HCS) coated CS hydrochloride every day. Using 16S and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) rRNA gene amplicon sequencing, we identified 12 bacterial and 3 fungal genera with significant changes among the groups, respectively. We found a significant increase in rumen NH3-N and total volatile fatty acid (TVFA) concentrations in the LCS and HCS groups compared with the CON. With untargeted LC-MS/MS metabolomics, we screened 59 rumen differential metabolites. Among the screened metabolites, many unsaturated and saturated fatty acids increased and decreased with CS treatment, respectively. CS supplementation increased the levels of plasma total antioxidant capacity (T-AOC), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), superoxide dismutase (SOD), GH, and insulin-like growth factor-1(IGF-1). Spearman correlation analysis revealed that the abundance of U29-B03, Lactococcus, and Brochothrix were positively associated with the levels of δ2-THA, TVFA and antioxidant capacity. In conclusion, CS significantly affected rumen microbiota and fermentation parameters, and ultimately inhibited the biohydrogenation of rumen metabolites, enhanced plasma antioxidant capacity, and regulated some hormones of the GH-IGF-1 axis. This study provides an overall view into the CS application as a strategy to improve health production in cashmere goats.

Fast and slow myofiber-specific expression profiles are affected by noncoding RNAs in Mongolian horses.

The heterogeneity and plasticity of muscle fibers are essential for the athletic performance of horses, mainly at the adaption of exercises and the effect on muscle diseases. Skeletal muscle fibers can be generally distinguished by their characteristics of contraction as slow and fast type myofibers. The diversity of contractile properties and metabolism enable skeletal muscles to respond to the variable functional requirements. We investigated the muscle fiber composition and metabolic enzyme activities of splenius muscle and gluteus medius muscle from Mongolian horses. The deep RNA-seq analysis of detecting differentially expressed mRNAs, lncRNAs, circRNAs and their correlation analysis from two muscles were performed. Splenius muscle and gluteus medius muscle from Mongolian horses showed a high divergence of myofiber compositions and metabolic enzyme activities. Corresponding to their phenotypic characteristics, 57 differentially expressed long noncoding RNAs and 12 differentially expressed circle RNAs were found between two muscles. The analysis results indicate multiple binding sites were detected in lncRNAs and circRNAs with myofiber-specific expressed miRNAs. Among which we found significant correlations between the above noncoding RNAs, miRNAs, their target genes, myofiber-specific developmental transcript factors, and sarcomere genes. We suggest that the ceRNA mechanism of differentially expressed noncoding RNAs by acting as miRNA sponges could be fine tuners in regulating skeletal muscle fiber composition and transition in horses, which will operate new protective measures of muscle disease and locomotor adaption for racehorses.

Green Fluorescent Tripeptide Nanostructures: Synergetic Effects of Oxidation and Hierarchical Assembly.

Peptide-based fluorescent materials hold promise for applications in energy harvesting and biomedicine. One remaining challenge is to overcome the barrier of fluorescence red shift, especially for peptide probes merely made of natural amino acids. Here we demonstrated an about 100 nm fluorescence red shift using a tripeptide GYK. Under UV illumination or in Fenton reactions, the hydroxyl free radical-based oxidation crosslinks GYK tripeptides into dimers, which can further act as building blocks to hierarchically assemble into nanostructures of different sizes and finally can shift the fluorescence from blue to green color (∼510 nm). Such assemblies can form core-shell-like nanostructures through further crosslinking of their surface with additional GYK monomers, which can not only make the nanostructures more robust but also efficiently improve their quantum yields. This research will deepen our understanding of bioluminescence, which sheds light on various biomedical applications of peptide-based fluorescent probes.

The distinct transcriptomes of fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscles in Mongolian horses.

Skeletal muscle is the largest organ system in the mammalian body and plays a key role in locomotion of horses. Fast and slow muscle fibers have different abilities and functions to adapt to exercises. To investigate the RNA and miRNA expression profiles in the muscles with different muscle fiber compositions on Mongolian horses. We examined the muscle fiber type population and produced deep RNA sequencing for different parts of skeletal muscles. And chose two of them with the highest difference in fast and slow muscle fiber population (splenius and gluteus medius) for comparing the gene expression profile of slow and fast muscle fiber types. We identified a total of 275 differentially expressed genes (DEGs), and 11 differentially expressed miRNAs (DEmiRs). In addition, target gene prediction and alternative splicing analysis were also performed. Significant correlations were found between the differentially expressed gene, miRNAs, and alternative splicing events. The result indicated that differentially expressed muscle-specific genes and target genes of miRNAs might co-regulating the performance of slow and fast muscle fiber types in Mongolian horses.