Search

The excessive accumulation of abdominal fat in chickens has resulted in a reduction in both the feed conversion efficiency and the slaughter yield. To elucidate the regulatory mechanisms and metabolic pathways affecting abdominal fat deposition in the context of broiler breeding, a cohort of 400 Qingyuan partridge chickens with varying abdominal fat deposition was established. Whole transcriptome sequencing analyses were conducted on the duodenum of 20 representative chickens to ascertain the regulatory networks at this vital digestive and absorptive organ. Consequently, 116 differentially expressed genes were identified, exhibiting a trend of increasing or decreasing expression in correlation with the accumulation of abdominal fat. A total of 36 DEmRNAs, 170 DElncRNAs, 92 DEcircRNAs and 88 DEmiRNAs were identified as differentially expressed between chickens with extremely high and low abdominal fat deposition. The functional enrichment analyses demonstrated that the differentially expressed RNA in the duodenum were involved in the regulation of chicken abdominal fat deposition by mediating a series of metabolic pathways, including the Wnt signaling pathway, the PPAR signaling pathway, the Hippo signaling pathway, the FoxO signaling pathway, the MAPK signaling pathway and other signaling pathways that are involved in fatty acid metabolism and degradation. The construction of putative interaction pairs led to the suggestion of two lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA ceRNA networks comprising two mRNAs, two miRNAs, and 29 lncRNAs, as well as two circRNA-lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA ceRNA networks comprising 26 mRNAs, 12 miRNAs, 17 lncRNAs, and nine circRNAs, as core regulatory networks in the duodenum affecting chicken abdominal fat deposition. The aforementioned genes including TMEM150C, REXO1, PIK3C2G, ppp1cb, PARP12, SERPINE2, LRAT, CYP1A1, INSR and APOA4, were proposed as candidate genes, while the miRNAs, including miR-107-y, miR-22-y, miR-25-y, miR-2404-x and miR-16-x, as well as lncRNAs such as ENSGALT00000100291, TCONS_00063508, TCONS_00061201 and TCONS_00079402 were the candidate regulators associated with chicken abdominal fat deposition. The findings of this study provide a theoretical foundation for the molecular mechanisms of mRNAs and non-coding RNAs in duodenal tissues on abdominal fat deposition in chickens., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any competing commercial or financial interests that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a potent tool for studying the structures and dynamics of insoluble proteins. It starts with signal assignment through multi-dimensional correlation experiments, where the aliphatic 13 Cα- 13 Cβ correlation is indispensable for identifying specific residues. However, developing efficient methods for achieving this correlation is a challenge in solid-state NMR. We present a simple band-selective zero-quantum (ZQ) recoupling method, named POST-C4 16 1 (PC4), which enhances 13 Cα- 13 Cβ correlations under moderate magic-angle spinning (MAS) conditions. PC4 requires minimal 13 C radio-frequency (RF) field and proton decoupling, exhibits high stability against RF variations, and achieves superior efficiency. Comparative tests on various samples, including the formyl-Met-Leu-Phe (fMLF) tripeptide, microcrystalline β1 immunoglobulin binding domain of protein G (GB1), and membrane protein of mechanosensitive channel of large conductance from Methanosarcina acetivorans (MaMscL), demonstrate that PC4 selectively enhances 13 Cα- 13 Cβ correlations by up to 50 % while suppressing unwanted correlations, as compared to the popular dipolar-assisted rotational resonance (DARR). It has addressed the long-standing need for selective 13 C- 13 C correlation methods. We anticipate that this simple but efficient PC4 method will have immediate applications in structural biology by solid-state NMR., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

A new-synthesized diarylethene with near-infrared fluorochrome unit exhibited excellent photochromism under the irradiation of UV light (297 nm) and visible light (λ > 500 nm). When Cu 2+ was added to the diarylethene solution, a fluorescent emission band centered at 736 nm appeared, indicating that the emission peak wavelength of compound is in near-infrared region. According to data of NMR, MS and other experiments, the complex ratio of the target compound to Cu 2+ was 1:1 in the CH 3 CN-H 2 O solution (v/v = 9:1) with a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.10 μM. Furthermore, a logic circuit was constructed with four input signals (ultraviolet stimulus, visible light stimulus, Cu 2+ and EDTA) and one output signal (fluorescent intensity at 736 nm)., (Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Bone is a complex composite material with hierarchical structures and anisotropic mechanical properties. Bone also processes electromechanical properties, such as piezoelectricity and streaming potentials, which termed as stress generated potentials. Furthermore, the electrostrictive effect and flexoelectric effect can also affect electromechanical properties of the bone. In the present work, time responses of bending deflections of bone cantilever in an external electric field are measured experimentally to investigate bone's electromechanical behavior. It is found that, when subjected to a square waveform electric field, a bone cantilever specimen begins to bend and its deflection increases gradually to a peak value. Then, the deflection begins to decrease gradually during the period of constant voltage. To analyze the reasons of the bending response of bone, additional experiments were performed. Experimental results obtained show the following two features. The first one is that the electric polarization, induced in bone by an electric field, is due to the Maxwell-Wagner polarization mechanism that the polarization rate is relatively slow, which leads to the electric field force acted on a bone specimen increase gradually and then its bending deflections increase gradually. The second one is that the flexoelectric polarization effect that resists the electric force to decrease and then leads to the bending deflection of a bone cantilever decrease gradually. It is concluded that the first aspect refers to the organic collagens decreasing the electric polarization rate of the bone, and the second one to the inorganic component influencing the bone's polarization intensity., (Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Mitochondria Ca 2+ overload has long been recognized as a cell death trigger. Unexpectedly, we demonstrated a signaling complex composed of Calmodulin (CaM), Arabidopsis thaliana Bcl-2-associated athanogene 5 (AtBAG5) and Heat-shock cognate 70 protein (Hsc70) within Arabidopsis thaliana mitochondria which transduces mitochondria Ca 2+ elevations to suppress leaf senescence. Gain- and loss-of-function AtBAG5 mutant plants revealed that, mitochondria Ca 2+ elevation significantly increase chlorophyll retention and decrease H 2 O 2 level in dark-induced leaf senescence assay. Based on our findings, we proposed a molecular mechanism in which chronic mitochondria Ca 2+ elevation reduced ROS levels and thus inhibits leaf senescence., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)