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With the gradual completion of the human genome project, proteomes have gained extremely important value in the fields of human disease and biological process research. In our previous research, we performed transcriptomic analyses of longissimus dorsi tissue from Kazakh cattle and Xinjiang brown cattle and conducted in-depth studies on the muscles of both species through epigenetics. However, it is unclear whether differentially expressed proteins in Kazakh cattle and Xinjiang brown cattle regulate muscle production and development. In this study, a proteomic analysis was performed on Xinjiang brown cattle and Kazakh cattle by using TMT markers, HPLC classification, LC/MS and bioinformatics analysis. A total of 13,078 peptides were identified, including 11,258 unique peptides. We identified a total of 1874 proteins, among which 1565 were quantifiable. Compared to Kazakh cattle, Xinjiang brown cattle exhibited 75 upregulated proteins and 44 downregulated proteins. These differentially expressed proteins were enriched for the functions of adrenergic signaling in cardiomyocytes, fatty acid degradation and glutathione metabolism. In our research, we found differentially expressed proteins in longissimus dorsi tissue between Kazakh cattle and Xinjiang brown cattle. We predict that these proteins regulate muscle production and development through select enriched signaling pathways. This study provides novel insights into the roles of proteomes in cattle genetics and breeding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clouds are an important parameter of artificial water augmentation, which are of substantial significance to judge the precipitation capacity. Xinjiang is an arid region in Northwest China, where weather stations are sparsely distributed, the types of underlying surface are complex and the climate difference between southern and northern Xinjiang varies greatly. However, the retrieval of the total cloud cover (TCC) from satellite in arid areas is a challenging task. Based on the hourly data of TCC observed by ground observation stations from June 2015 to May 2016, considered the complex underlying surfaces and different weather conditions, the precision, consistency and error between the cloud total amount products of FengYun-2F stationary satellite (FY-2F/CTA) and manually observed TCC are compared and evaluated in Xinjiang region. The findings of this study are as follows: (1) The precision rate (PR) of FY-2F/CTA in Xinjiang region is 74.6 %, which gradually decreases from north to south, demonstrating a high false rate (FR) and a low missing rate (MR); The consistency rate (CR) is 51.5 %, with little difference among three sub-regions of Xinjiang, all showing high weak rate (WR) and low strong rate (SR), which means that the TCC inverted from FY-2 satellite data are generally lower than that observed by ground observation stations, especially in Southern Xinjiang; The Bias is -20 %, and all the error indexes (EIs) including Bias, AE and RMSE increase from central to the north and south of Xinjiang, that means the EIs are the lowest in Tianshan Mountains, and the highest in Southern Xinjiang. The PR and CR of FY-2F/CTA in the vegetation underlying surface are better than those of non-vegetation, that is to say, FY-2F/CTA have the best identification effect on the forest and plowland underlying surfaces, and the worst effect on the snow and ice underlying surface. (2) With the increase of temperature, the PR and CR of FY-2F/CTA increase, while the EIs decrease; Under various temperature conditions, FY-2F/CTA have always been exhibiting high MR, low FR (on the contrary in January), high WR and low SR. From low elevation to high elevation, the PR and CR of FY-2F/CTA decrease, but the PR increases significantly when the altitude is higher than 2000 m. (3) Dust reduces the CR of FY-2F/CTA, increases the SR, but it has little effect on the identification of cloud and non-cloud. (4) Under different cloud cover levels, the PR and EIs of FY-2F/CTA are proportional to the amount of TCC, while the CR is inversely proportional to it, that is, the CR is higher, the PR and EIs are lower under clear sky and partly cloudy conditions, and the CR is lower, the PR and EIs are higher under cloudy and overcast conditions. This study is the first to evaluate the FY-2F/CTA on the scales of complex underlying surface, various temperature and altitude, dust effects and different cloud cover levels in arid areas of Xinjiang. Thus, the results would provide an important reference for satellite retrieval and application of TCC in arid areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beijing/W lineage strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis spread faster than other strains, tend to be more virulent and frequently associated with drug resistance. In this study, to distinguish the characteristics of Beijing/W lineage and non-Beijing/W lineage M. tuberculosis, we assessed the growth between the two groups under conditions of hypoxia, nutrient starvation, and intracellular growth in murine macrophages. We also examined the DNA, RNA, and protein levels of 5 major M. tuberculosis proteins, including HspX, Hsp65, 38 kDa, Ag85B, and MPT64 of the different types of strains by sequencing, quantitative RT-PCR, and Western blotting. The results showed that Beijing/W and non-Beijing/W lineage strains of M. tuberculosis have similar viability in ex vivo culture but differ in their ability to survive within macrophages, and the intracellular viability of the Beijing/W lineage strains was significantly more than the viability of the non-Beijing/W lineage strains at 2, 3, and 5 days after infection ( P < 0.05). Psts1 and fbpB were expressed at statistically lower levels in Beijing/W lineage strains in their mRNA expression levels ( P < 0.05). The expression of their corresponding 38 kDa and Ag85B was lower in the Beijing/W lineage strains than the non-Beijing/W lineage strains ( P < 0.05). The expression of HspX and Hsp65 was higher in the Beijing/W lineage strains in their protein expression levels at 24 h after infection of RAW264.7 macrophages ( P < 0.05). In conclusion, the increased viability of the Beijing/W lineage strains might be related to the expression levels of these proteins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years diamonds and other exotic minerals have been recovered from mantle peridotites and high-Cr chromitites of a number of ophiolites of different age and different tectonic environments. Here we report a similar collection of minerals from the Sartohay ophiolite of Xinjiang Province, western China, which is characterized by having high-Al chromitites. Several samples of massive podiform chromitite with an aggregate weight of nearly 900 kg yielded diamonds, moissanite and other highly reduced minerals, as well as common crustal minerals. Thus far, more than 20 grains each of diamond and moissanite have been recovered from heavy mineral separates of the chromitites. The diamonds are all 100-200 μm in size and range in color from pale yellow to reddish-orange to colorless. Most of the grains are anhedral to subhedral octahedra, commonly with elongate forms exhibiting well-developed striations. They all display characteristic Raman spectra with shifts between 1325 cm−1 and 1333 cm−1, mostly 1331.51 cm−1 or 1326.96 cm−1. The moissanite grains are light blue to dark blue, broken crystals, 50-150 μm across, commonly occurring as small flakes or fragments. Their typical Raman spectra have shifts at 762 cm−1, 785 cm−1, and 966 cm−1. This investigation extends the occurrence of diamonds and moissanite to a Paleozoic ophiolite in the Central Asian Orogenic Belt and demonstrates that these minerals can also occur in high-Al chromitites. We conclude that diamonds and moissanite are likely to be ubiquitous in ophiolitic mantle peridotites and chromitites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The allele frequencies and statistical parameters of 38 autosomal short tandem repeat (STR) loci were analyzed in the Uygur population from Southern Xinjiang of China with 290 unrelated individuals. The results show these 38 STR loci have high or medium power of discrimination and probabilities of exclusion. All loci are in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. The genetic distances between the Uygur population and other Chinese populations were also estimated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]