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In mammals, oxidative stress-induced apoptosis of granulosa cells is one of the major causes of follicular atresia, affecting ovarian physiological function. Protegrin-1 (PG-1) is an antimicrobial peptide with effective antimicrobial activity, immunomodulatory function, and porcine growth-promoting effects. PG-1 has been detected in porcine ovaries follicles. This study aimed to investigate the effect of PG-1 on oxidative stress-induced apoptosis of porcine ovarian granulosa cells and the underlying molecular mechanism. Granulosa cells were obtained from porcine follicles and treated with H2O2 to establish the oxidative stress model, and then treated with or without PG-1 (10 μg/mL). PG-1 significantly suppressed H2O2-induced apoptosis in granulosa cells after 24 h of treatment. Furthermore, these results revealed that PG-1 increased the mRNA and protein expression of anti-apoptotic B cell lymphoma/leukemia 2 (BCL2) and the BCL2/Bcl-2-associated X protein (BAX) ratio while decreasing the expression of pro-apoptotic BAX and active caspase-3. Using western blot analysis, it was found that PG-1 decreased the phosphorylation of RNA-like endoplasmic reticulum kinase (PERK) and the α-subunit of eukaryotic initiation factor 2 (eIF2α) as well as the protein expression level of CCAAT enhancer-binding protein homologous protein (CHOP), all of which were increased by H2O2. Moreover, inhibitors against PERK and phospho-eIF2ɑ both suppressed the H2O2-induced granulosa cells apoptosis and enhanced the anti-apoptosis effect of PG-1. Taken together, our findings demonstrated that PG-1 inhibited porcine ovarian granulosa cell apoptosis from oxidative stress via the PERK/eIF2α/CHOP signaling pathway in vitro, which suggests the novel regulatory function of the antimicrobial peptide in the ovary.

The heliostat field of tower solar thermal power station accounts for 40%–50% of the total cost, and influences the concentrating efficiency. Accordingly, it is necessary to optimize the layout of the heliostat field. Based on the optical efficiency model, an improved Gray Wolf Optimization (GWO) algorithm is proposed to optimize the field parameters of the heliostats, improve the convergence factor and weight updating formula, and effectively avoid the local optimal problem. Then SolarPILOT software is used to simulate the heliostat field distribution. In order to reduce the shadow and shielding efficiency loss, improve the land utilization rate and atmospheric attenuation efficiency, the heliostat field is initialized by radial staggered arrangement, which is easy to be optimized. By using the optical efficiency model, the program of heliostat field optimization algorithm is developed, and a Delingha tower power station is used to verify the algorithm. After the improved GWO algorithm optimizing the heliostat field, the optical or concentrating efficiency of the heliostat field is increased by 8.2% compared with the GWO algorithm. The improved GWO algorithm reduces the heliostat number by 3.4% compared with the Gray Wolf algorithm, and that reducing the cost of the heliostat field.

Highlights • We generated transgenic pig expressing PRRSV-specific siRNA. • Stability of siRNA expression was proved in two generations. • Type I interferon was not elicited by the expression of siRNA in vivo. • We proved that transgenic pigs showed substantially decreased virus load in serum after PRRSV infection., Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) is an economically devastating viral disease causing heavy losses to the swine industry worldwide. Many studies have shown that transient delivery of small interfering RNA (siRNA) or adenovirus-mediated RNA interfere (RNAi) could potentially inhibit porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) replication in vivo and in vitro. Here, we applied RNAi to produce transgenic (TG) pigs that constitutively expressed PRRSV-specific siRNA derived from small hairpin RNA (shRNA). First, we evaluated siRNA expression in the founding and F1 generation pigs and confirmed stable transmission. Then, we detected the expression of IFN-β and protein kinase R (PKR) and found no difference among TG, non-transgenic (NTG), and wild-type pigs. Lastly, the F1 generation pigs, including TG and NTG piglets, were challenged with 3 × 104.5 TCID50 of JXA1, a highly pathogenic porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (HP-PRRSV). Our results showed that the in vivo siRNA expression substantially reduced the serum HP-PRRSV titers and increased survival time by 3 days when TG pigs were compared with the NTG controls. These data suggested that RNAi-based genetic modification might be used to breed viral-resistant livestock with stable siRNA expression with no complications of siRNA toxicity.

At present, the variation of gas content resulted from the surface coalbed methane (CBM) development has not been reported at home. It is introduced that adopting the CBM-SIM software and combining with the key oil and gas special research task, the productivity prediction and reservoir simulation analysis of the impact and variation of the CBM in the surface CBM development process are conducted respectively in the Sihe north block and Chengzhuang block of the Jincheng mining area. Combined with the measured results of the gas content in the inspect well on the drainage effect after 5 years on the surface CBM development in the Sihe north block, the variation rules of the CBM in the surface coalbed methane development process are discussed and researched.