To study the effects of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and its receptor (IL-6R) during in vitro maturation of ovine oocytes, the mRNA and protein expression levels of IL-6 and IL-6R, along with their localization, were examined during ovine oocytes maturation in vitro through real-time PCR, Western blotting, and immunohistochemistry. Specific patterns of expression of IL-6 and IL-6R were observed at both mRNA and protein levels at each stage of ovine oocytes maturation. IL-6 and IL-6R were distributed primarily on the surface of the cell membrane, with little expression in the cytoplasm or nucleus. IL-6 and IL- 6R were expressed significantly at higher levels in the maturation around 4 h, and then decreased dramatically. However the level slightly elevated at 20-24 h. The role of IL-6 and IL-6R on oocytes maturation was studied through in vitro addition of recombinant human IL-6 in different concentrations. The addition of 10 ng mL-1 IL-6 significantly increased the rates of oocytes maturation (P<0.05), but did not affect the rates of development of the subsequence IVF ovine embryos. In summary, IL-6 is likely to play an important role in the early ovine oocytes maturation. The expression patterns of the IL-6 and IL-6R on the ovine oocytes maturation open up the possibility of regulatory role of the cytokine in ovine oocytes maturation.

5-Aminolevulinic acid (ALA), a major photosensitivity insecticide, has attracted increasing attention as a new type of highly efficient, environmental friendly pesticide to be used to control the pest. To examine whether or not ALA acts effectively to grasshopper, Oxya chinensis and elucidate the detoxification mechanism of ALA, the susceptibility to ALA was assessed in O. chinensis and two major metabolic detoxification enzymes including glutathione S-transferases (GSTs) and general esterases (ESTs)-specific activities were compared in different development stages and different body sections
of O. chinensis treated by ALA and the control. The results showed that the ALA exhibited obvious toxicity to the grasshopper in different development stages. In the low-dose treatment (0.0597 mmol L-1), the mortalities of O. chinensis reached a significant level (55.5% in the 1st instar nymphs, 61.4% in the 2nd instar nymphs, 71.4% in the 3rd instar nymphs, and 64.4% in the 4th instar nymphs. But, there was no dose-dependent toxic effect. Thereby, we proposed that ALA has the potential for acting as photosensitivity insecticide for controlling O. chinensis. GSTs activity assays using CDNB and DCNB as substrates indicated that the thorax and abdomen of the different instar nymphs treated by ALA showed 1.52-5.56 fold significantly increased GSTs activities compared with the control. However, for the ESTs-specific activity assay, there was no significant difference between O. chinensis treated by ALA and the control within different instar nymphs, when α-NA, α-NB and β-NA were used as substrates. Therefore, GSTs-mediated metabolic detoxification
as evidenced by significantly increased GSTs activities might contribute to protect against oxidative damage and oxidative
stress by ALA in O. chinensis.