Seasonal hair follicle activity and fibre growth in some Cashmere-bearing goats (Caprus hircus) is a cyclic process that is well characterized morphologically but understood incompletely at the molecular level. As an initial step in discovering regulators in hair-follicle activity and cycling, we used qPCR to investigate 19 genes expression in Cashmere goat side skin from 12 mon. Many of these genes may be associated with the hair follicle development-relevant genes (HFDRGs) in the literature. Here we show that Hoxc13/β-catenin gene associated with the follicle activity. In addition, Hoxc13 was found to be expressed with an drastic increase between July and November for melatonin treatments. To further investigate the role of Hoxc13 on HFDRGs, fibroblasts and keratinocytes from Cashmere goat skin were transfected with p-ECFPHoxc13. The result suggested that overexpression of Hoxc13 gene decreased HFDRGs with negative role for hair follicle development and increase HFDRGs with positive role for hair follicle development in vitro. These findings provide data on the Hoxc13 expression profile of normal Cashmere goat skin and Cashmere goat skin with melatonin treatment, and demonstrate hair-follicle-activity dependent regulation of Hoxc13 expression.

Oryza officinalis is one of the important wild species in the tertiary gene pool of Oryza sativa. It has a number of elite genes for rice breeding in resistance or tolerance. However, breeding barriers are so serious that the gene transfer is much difficult by sexual cross method between O. sativa and O. officinalis. Characteristics of the breeding barriers were systemically studied in this paper. When both the diploid (AA, 2n=2x=24) and autotetraploid (AAAA, 2n=4x=48) cultivated rice were crossed as maternal parents with O. officinalis (CC, 2n=2x=24), none F1 hybrid seeds were obtained. The young hybrid ovaries aborted at 13-16 d after pollinations (DAP). By rescuing hybrid embryos, in vitro F1 plantlets were obtained in 2x×2x combinations with the crossabilities lower than 0.5%. Lower rates of double-fertilization and abnormal development of hybrid embryo and endosperm were mainly observed in both combinations of 2x×2x and 4x×2x. Free endosperm nuclei in hybrid degenerated early at 1 DAP in a large scale. Almost no normal endosperm cells formed at 3 DAP. Development of a lot of embryos ceased at globular- or pear-shaped stage as well as some degenerated gradually. The hybrid plantlets were both male and female sterility. Due to the abnormal development, a diversity of abnormal embryo sacs formed in hybrids, and hybrid pollen grains were typically abortive. It showed that conflicts of genome A and C in hybrid induced abnormal meioses of meiocytes.