Search

The Tibetan chicken (Gallus gallus) provides high quality protein and iron for humans, which shows many phenotypic adaptations to the low oxygen. Study of the genetic mechanisms of circular RNAs (circRNAs) in hypoxia adaptation has not been reported. Four embryonic heart tissue samples from Tibetan chickens and Daheng broilers were collected. Differentially expressed circRNAs (DEcircRNAs) were identified via high-throughput sequencing. Bioinformatic analysis was used to indicate the functions and pathways of the DEcircRNAs. A total of 29 DEcircRNAs were identified between 4 Tibetan chickens and 4 Daheng broilers, including 15 upregulated and 14 downregulated DEcircRNAs in Tibetan chickens. GO analysis revealed that the DEcircRNAs were mainly involved in lung development or oxygen metabolism, such as ubiqunegative regulation of mesenchymal cell proliferation involved in lung development, oxidoreductase activity, and peroxisome. Pathway analysis showed that DEcircRNAs were mainly enriched in oxidative phosphorylation, tight junction, VEGF/MAPK/PPAR/Ras/PI3K-Akt signaling pathway. We also constructed a circRNA-miRNA-mRNA-pathway network to visualize the regulatory relationship associated with hypoxia adaptation of the tight junction pathways. The circRNA expression profile was obtained to complement the current Tibetan chicken circRNA database and provides new information for future studies into biological adaptation to hypoxic stress in the Tibetan chicken. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Free-range broiler production is an effective combination of ecological and economic benefits which should be further standardized. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of free-range broiler production on ecosystem by measuring the changes in vegetation characteristics and soil physicochemical properties under different stocking densities. A natural meadow with rich biodiversity was created and further divided into three groups. The broilers were reared in door and provided range access around 6 to 22 weeks of age with two different densities, 600 and 1200 broilers/ha. The vegetation characteristics and soil physicochemical properties, such as total coverage, soil nutrition and pH value, were measured at the beginning and the end of stocking. The results showed that the vegetation characteristics and soil physicochemical properties changed significantly after free-range stocking. The dominant plants, total coverage, richness index, diversity and biomass above-ground of treatment groups illustrated a considerable difference comparing with those in control group, and the indicators of soil physicochemical properties in treatment groups increased remarkably except the pH value. The present study demonstrated the higher stocking density would cause a more serious destruction of vegetation characteristics and modification of soil physicochemical properties, which suggested that an even lower stocking density or an alternative management such as rotational grazing could be a better choice for free-range broiler production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hypoxia affects the physiology of cells and organisms; however, the mechanisms associated with hypoxia adaptation remain unknown in Tibetan chickens. In this study, we aimed to identify long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) involved in hypoxia adaptation in Tibetan chickens and Daheng broilers, to provide insights into the mechanisms underlying hypoxia induction. RNA sequencing results revealed that a total of 5504 lncRNAs and 16,779 microRNAs were differentially expressed in four Tibetan chickens and four Daheng broilers; 70 lncRNAs were up-regulated and 113 lncRNAs were down-regulated in the Tibetan chickens compared to the expression levels in the Daheng broilers. The differentially expressed lncRNAs (DElncRNAs) were enriched in the following Gene ontology terms: protein complex localization, small-molecule metabolic process, and RNA splicing. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analyses revealed that the DElncRNAs were mainly enriched in pathways that regulate cell junctions and intercellular spaces and oxygen or energy metabolism, mainly involved in hypoxic adaption. Moreover, a predicted ceRNA network with five DElncRNAs interacted with three miRNAs that acted on 42 pathways through 19 target genes. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction was used to verify that the expression levels of ENSGALG00000008047, ENSGALG00000050044, and ENSGALG00000053982 were significantly lower in Tibetan chickens than in the Daheng broilers, consistent with the RNA sequencing results. We obtained lncRNA expression profiles for the heart tissue of Tibetan chickens for the first time and have provided novel data that may aid research on biological adaptation to hypoxic stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Functional studies have revealed miRNAs play pivotal roles in ovulation and ovary development in mammalians, whereas little is known about the miRNA function in ducks. In this study, miRNA deep sequencing in the ovary tissues was carried out to obtain the miRNA profile from ovaries before oviposition (BO) and after oviposition (AO) in Jinding duck. Overall, an average of 23,128,075 and 26,020,523 reads were identified in the BO and AO samples, respectively, and 6739 miRNAs were identified from them through further mapping and analysis. Besides, 1570 miRNAs were identified as differentially expressed miRNAs compared with BO, including 493 miRNAs up-regulated and 1077 down-regulated in AO. Moreover, 2291 target genes were predicted from 443 significantly differentially expressed miRNAs. In addition, GO and KEGG pathway analysis indicated that target genes were enriched in some basic cell metabolism pathways as well as the productive pathways such as MAPK signaling pathway, gonadotropin-releasing hormone signaling pathway, TGF-beta signaling pathway which had been significantly changed. Our results helped to replenish the duck miRNA database and illustrate the potential mechanism of miRNA function in duck ovary development and reproduction process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negative capacitance is a newly discovered state of ferroelectric materials that holds promise for electronics applications by exploiting a region of thermodynamic space that is normally not accessible1-14. Although existing reports of negative capacitance substantiate the importance of this phenomenon, they have focused on its macroscale manifestation. These manifestations demonstrate possible uses of steady-state negative capacitance—for example, enhancing the capacitance of a ferroelectric-dielectric heterostructure4,7,14 or improving the subthreshold swing of a transistor8-12. Yet they constitute only indirect measurements of the local state of negative capacitance in which the ferroelectric resides. Spatial mapping of this phenomenon would help its understanding at a microscopic scale and also help to achieve optimal design of devices with potential technological applications. Here we demonstrate a direct measurement of steady-state negative capacitance in a ferroelectric-dielectric heterostructure. We use electron microscopy complemented by phase-field and first-principles-based (second-principles) simulations in SrTiO3/PbTiO3 superlattices to directly determine, with atomic resolution, the local regions in the ferroelectric material where a state of negative capacitance is stabilized. Simultaneous vector mapping of atomic displacements (related to a complex pattern in the polarization field), in conjunction with reconstruction of the local electric field, identify the negative capacitance regions as those with higher energy density and larger polarizability: the domain walls where the polarization is suppressed. Imaging steady-state negative capacitance in SrTiO3/PbTiO3 superlattices with atomic resolution provides solid microscale support for this phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BSIM (Berkeley Short-Channel IGFET) became the first international industry standard model for simulation of MOS integrated circuits in 1997. The cumulative sales of ICs that have been designed with the aid of BSIM and produced for computing, communication, consumer, and industrial applications is estimated to be around 400 billion US dollars. From 0.35 μm CMOS to multi-gate FinFET, BSIM serves a wide range of technologies. Many China educated researchers have contributed to its success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conventional wisdom holds that CMOS devices cannot be scaled much further from where they are today because of several device physics limitations such as the large tunneling current in very thin gate dielectrics. It is shown that alternative device structures can allow CMOS transistors to scale by another 20 times. That is as large a factor of scaling as what the semiconductor industry accomplished in the past 25 years. There will be many opportunities and challenges in finding novel device structures and new processing techniques, and in understanding the physics of future devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this Letter, the first name of author Bhagwati Prasad was misspelled Bhagawati. This error has been corrected online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The feather growth rate in chickens included early and late feathering. We attempted to characterize the genes and pathways associated with the feather growth rate in chickens that are not in agreement with Mendelian inheritance. Gene expression profiles in the hair follicle tissues of late-feathering cocks (LC), early-feathering cocks (EC), late-feathering hens (LH), and early-feathering hens (EH) were acquired using RNA sequencing (RNA-seq), mass spectrometry (MS), and quantitative reverse transcription PCR (qRT‑PCR). A total of 188 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were ascertained in EC vs. LC and 538 DEGs were identified in EH vs. LH. We observed that 14 up-regulated genes and 9 down-regulated genes were screened both in EC vs. LC and EH vs. LH. MS revealed that 41 and 138 differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) were screened out in EC vs. LC and EH vs. LH, respectively. Moreover, these DEGs and DEPs were enriched in multiple feather-related pathways, including JAK-STAT, MAPK, WNT, TGF-β, and calcium signaling pathways. qRT-PCR assay showed that the expression of WNT8A was decreased in LC compared with EC, while ALK and GRM4 expression were significantly up-regulated in EH relative to LH. This study helps to elucidate the potential mechanism of the feather growth rate in chickens that do not conform to genetic law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]