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As a product with both nutritional value and health function, millet products are favored by more and more consumers. Hebei Province is one of the important provinces whose residents produce millets and consume millet products. And it is of great significance for leading the development of local millet industry to study behavior in millet products consumption. Therefore, this study is based on the survey results of 440 residents in Hebei Province. At the same time, under the guidance of planned behavior theory, this paper analyzes the factors affecting the consumption behavior of millet products of residents by the Binary Logistic model. The results show that: urban and rural residents’ awareness of millet products’ nutritional and health functions, texture, appearance quality, promotion of millet products, product prices, knowledge of millet products, consumers’ gender, age and residence, etc., all have a significant impact on residents’ millet product consumption behavior. Accordingly, this article proposes countermeasures and suggestions for the high-quality development of the millet industry in Hebei Province from the aspects of increasing the research and development of high-yield and high-quality millet varieties, supporting the development of millet deep processing enterprises, and promoting the development of diversified functional millet products.

Recent studies have shown that ST6 beta-galactosamide alpha-2,6-sialyltransferase 1 (ST6GAL1), ST8 alpha-N-acetyl-neuraminide alpha-2,8-sialyltransferase 4 (ST8SIA4), and solute carrier family 35, member C1 (SLC35C1) play essential roles in the metabolism of milk glycoconjugates in mammals. However, studies on their coding genes in water buffalo have not been reported. In the present study, cloning and sequencing showed that the coding sequences (CDSs) of buffalo ST6GAL1, ST8SIA4, and SLC35C1 were 1218, 1080, and 1095 bp in length, which encoded a precursor protein composed of 405, 359, and 364 amino acids, respectively. The deduced sequences of these three proteins in turn showed 97.6–98.5, 98.6–99.7, and 97.8–99.2 % similarities with other bovine species. Both buffalo ST6GAL1 and ST8SIA4 were predicted to be a member of glycosyltransferase family 29 and were all hydrophilicity proteins functioning in the Golgi apparatus. Buffalo SLC35C1 was a hydrophobic membrane protein located in the Golgi membrane, containing a TPT domain that is found in a number of sugar phosphate transporters. In addition, semi-quantitative RT-PCR analysis in 13 lactating buffalo tissues revealed that the ST6GAL1 and ST8SIA4 were expressed in 9 tissues, while SLC35C1 was expressed in 11 tissues. The expression levels of these three genes in the mammary gland were significantly higher in lactating than in non-lactating stage. Collectively, our data indicate that ST6GAL1, ST8SIA4, and SLC35C1 are potentially involved in the process of buffalo lactation.

The Na+, K+-ATPase is a transmembrane carrier protein which plays an important role in Na-K transport and energy metabolism. The aim of this study was to obtain the full-length coding sequence (CDS) of water buffalo Na+, K+-ATPase β2-subunit (ATP1B2) using RT-PCR and to investigate the characterizations of its sequence and tissue expression patterns. Sequence analysis revealed that the CDS of water buffalo ATP1B2 encodes an enzyme of 290 amino acid residues with a deduced molecular weight of 33.39 KDa and a PI of 8.37. Water buffalo ATP1B2 was presumed to have a signal peptide, a strong hydrophobic region and to exert its function in the plasma membrane with high reliability. In addition, water buffalo ATP1B2 has a conserved Na+, K+-ATPase β domain which belongs to Na+, K+-ATPase superfamily. The sequence of water buffalo ATP1B2 gene shares 97.6, 97.4, 92.2, 93.2, 89.9, 93.2, 89.5 and 62.9 % identify with its homologous sequence of cattle, sheep, dog, human, mouse, baboon, rat and African clawed frog, respectively. Phylogenetic tree analysis based on the CDS of ATP1B2 gene showed that water buffalo has a closer genetic relationship with cattle than with other species. The ATP1B2 gene was widely expressed in the tissues examined, being high in the pituitary gland and brain, moderate in the muscle, spleen, liver, mammary gland, kidney and rumen, weak in the heart, small intestines and skin, and not expressed in the lung and adipose tissue. This study will establish a foundation for further insights into this novel water buffalo gene.