The low egg production of goose greatly limits the development of the industry.  China possesses the most abundant goose breeds resources.  In this study, genome resequencing data of swan goose (Anser cygnoides) and domesticated high and low laying goose breeds (Anser cygnoides domestiation) were used to identify key genes related to egg laying ability in geese and verify their functions.  Selective sweep analyses revealed 416 genes that were specifically selected during the domestication process from swan geese to high laying geese.  Furthermore, SNPs and Indels markers were used in GWAS analyses between high and low laying breed geese.  The results showed that RTCB, BPIFC, SYN3, SYNE1, VIP, and ESR1 may be related to the differences in laying ability of geese.  Notably, only ESR1 was identified simultaneously by GWAS and selective sweep analysis.  The genotype of Indel_{chr3:54429172}, located downstream of ESR1, was confirmed to affect the expression of ESR1 in the ovarian stroma and showed significant correlation with body weight at first egg and laying frequency of geese.  CCK-8, EdU, and flow cytometry confirmed that ESR1 can promote the apoptosis of goose pre-hierarchical follicles ganulosa cells (phGCs) and inhibit their proliferation.  Combined with transcriptome data, it was found ESR1 involved in the function of goose phGCs may be related to MAPK and TGF-beta signaling pathways.  Overall, our study used genomic information from different goose breeds to identify an indel located in the downstream of ESR1 associated with goose laying ability.  The main pathways and biological processes of ESR1 involved in the regulation of goose laying ability were identified by cell biology and transcriptomics methods.  These results are helpful to further understand the laying ability characteristics of goose and improve the egg production of geese.

We used field experimental data to evaluate the ability of the agricultural production system model (APSIM) to simulate soil P availability, maize biomass and grain yield in response to P fertilizer applications on a fluvo-aquic soil in the North China Plain.  Crop and soil data from a 2-year experiment with three P fertilizer application rates (0, 75 and 300 kg P₂O₅ ha^–1) were used to calibrate the model.  Sensitivity analysis was carried out to investigate the influence of APSIM SoilP parameters on the simulated P availability in soil and maize growth.  Crop and soil P parameters were then derived by matching or relating the simulation results to observed crop biomass, yield, P uptake and Olsen-P in soil.  The re-parameterized model was further validated against 2 years of independent data at the same sites.  The re-parameterized model enabled good simulation of the maize leaf area index (LAI), biomass, grain yield, P uptake, and grain P content in response to different levels of P additions against both the calibration and validation datasets.  Our results showed that APSIM needs to be re-parameterized for simulation of maize LAI dynamics through modification of leaf size curve and a reduction in the rate of leaf senescence for modern stay-green maize cultivars in China.  The P concentration limits (maximum and minimum P concentrations in organs) at different stages also need to be adjusted.  Our results further showed a curvilinear relationship between the measured Olsen-P concentration and simulated labile P content, which could facilitate the initialization of APSIM P pools in the NCP with Olsen-P measurements in future studies.  It remains difficult to parameterize the APSIM SoilP module due to the conceptual nature of the pools and simplified conceptualization of key P transformation processes.  A fundamental understanding still needs to be developed for modelling and predicting the fate of applied P fertilizers in soils with contrasting physical and chemical characteristics.

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are emerging as powerful regulators of adipocyte differentiation, fat metabolism and gene expression. However, the functional roles and mechanisms of lncRNAs in these processes remain unclear. Here, we identified a novel antisense transcript, named APMAP-AS, transcribed from adipocyte membrane-associated protein (APMAP) in the pig genome. APMAP-AS and APMAP were highly expressed in retroperitoneal adipose of obese pigs, compared with that in control pigs. Using a bone mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) adipogenic differentiation model, we found that APMAP-AS positively regulated adipogenic differentiation. APMAP-AS had the potential to form an RNA–RNA duplex with APMAP, and increased the stability of APMAP mRNA. Additionally, APMAP-AS promoted lipid metabolism and inhibited the expression of inflammatory factors. These findings of a natural antisense transcript for a regulatory gene associated with lipid synthesis might further our understanding of lncRNAs in driving adaptive adipose tissue remodeling and preserving metabolic health.

High-yield rice varieties with a suitable growth duration are required for mechanical transplanting in multiple cropping systems.  Daily yield is an appropriate criterion for the selection of machine-transplanted rice varieties.  The aim of this study was to investigate the growth characteristics and grain production in machine-transplanted medium indica hybrid rice with a high daily yield.  We conducted a field experiment on 20 medium indica hybrid rice varieties in 2017 and 2018.  Grain yield decreased significantly with growth duration between jointing and heading, but it increased with dry matter accumulation, growth rate between jointing and heading, dry matter partitioning to the stem plus sheath at heading, daily yield, and number of spikelets per panicle.  Compared with the medium and low daily yield variety types, the high daily yield variety type increased shoot biomass by improving crop growth rate and dry matter accumulation amount between jointing and heading and after heading.  The high daily yield variety type decreased the growth duration pre-heading and the proportions of dry matter partitioned to the leaf lamina at heading and maturity, but it also increased the post-heading accumulated dry matter in the grain and the remobilization of dry matter stored in the vegetative organs.  Furthermore, the high daily yield variety type significantly increased the occurrence rate of tillers, which is beneficial for the formation of a larger panicle size and an increase in the grain-filling rate.  These changes contributed to a 6.51–23.16% relative increase in grain yield of the high daily yield variety type.  In conclusion, the selection of high daily yield indica hybrid rice varieties with shorter pre-heading growth duration, greater tiller occurrence rate and spikelet numbers per panicle, higher post-jointing growth rates and stem plus sheath dry matter accumulation at heading is suitable for machine-transplanted rice.

The present study investigates the chemical composition and antioxidant capacity of juice from the Gannan navel orange, which is harvested at one- to two-week intervals during the ripening period.  The total soluble solid (TSS), total polyphenol content (TPC), total flavonoid content (TFC), sucrose and hesperidin contents gradually increase with the ripening of the fruit, followed by slight declines at the late maturity stage.  Contrary to these observations, the contents of titratable acid (TA), vitamin C (Vc), and limonin trend downward throughout the ripening period.  However, the contents of fructose, glucose, and narirutin fluctuate throughout the harvest time.  Three in vitro antioxidant assays consistently indicate that the harvest time exerts no significant influence (P>0.01) on the antioxidant capacity.  Furthermore, principal component analysis (PCA) and Pearson’s correlation test are performed to provide an overview of the complete dataset. This study provides valuable information for evaluating the fruit quality and determining when to harvest the fruit in order to meet the preferences of consumers.  Meanwhile, our observations suggest that the fruits subjected to juice processing should be harvested at the late maturity stage to alleviate the “delayed bitterness” problem without compromising the antioxidant capacity and the flavonoid content in the juice.

Plants glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GPDH) catalyzes the formation of glycerol-3-phosphate, and plays an essential role in glycerolipid metabolism and stress responses. In the present study, the knock-out mutants of cytosolic GPDH (AtGPDHc2) and wild-type Arabidopsis plants were treated with 0, 50, 100, and 150 mmol L^–1 NaCl to reveal the effects of AtGPDHc2 deficiency on salinity stress responses. The fluctuation in redox status, reactive oxygen species (ROS) and antioxidant enzymes as well as the transcripts of genes involved in the relevant processes were measured. In the presence of 100 and 150 mmol L^–1 NaCl treatments, AtGPDHc2-deficient plants exhibited a pronounced reduction in germination rate, fresh weight, root length, and overall biomass. Furthermore, loss of AtGPDHc2 resulted in a significant perturbation in cellular redox state (NADH/NAD+ and AsA/DHA) and consequent elevation of ROS and thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (TBARS) content. The elevated ROS level triggered substantial increases in ROS-scavenging enzymes activities, and the up-regulated transcripts of the genes (CSD1, sAPX and PER33) encoding the antioxidant enzymes were also observed. In addition, the transcript levels of COX15, AOX1A and GLDH in gpdhc2 mutants decreased in comparison to wild-type plants, which demonstrated that the deficiency of AtGPDHc2 might also has impact on mitochondrial respiration under salt stress. Together, this work provides some new evidences on illustrating the roles of AtGPDHc2 playing in response to salinity stress by regulating cellular redox homeostasis, ROS metabolism and mitochondrial respiration.

Allopolyploidy has played an important role in plant evolution and heterosis.  Recent studies indicate that the process of wide hybridization and (or) polyploidization may induce rapid and extensive genetic and epigenetic changes in some plant species.  To better understand the allopolyploidy evolutionism and the genetic mechanism of Arachis interspecific hybridization, this study was conducted to monitor the gene expression variation by cDNA start codon targeted polymorphism (cDNA-SCoT) and cDNA high-frequency oligonucleotide-targeting active gene (cDNA-HFO-TAG) techniques, from the hybrids (F₁) and newly synthesized allopolyploid generations (S₀-S₃) between tetraploid cultivated peanut Zhongkaihua 4 with diploid wild one Arachis doigoi. Rapid and considerable gene expression variations began as early as in the F₁ hybrid or immediately after chromosome doubling.  Three types of gene expression changes were observed, including complete silence (gene from progenitors was not expressed in all progenies), incomplete silence (gene expressed only in some progenies) and new genes activation.  Those silent genes mainly involved in RNA transcription, metabolism, disease resistance, signal transduction and unknown functions.  The activated genes with known function were almost retroelements by cDNA-SCoT technique and all metabolisms by cDNA-HFO-TAG.  These findings indicated that interspecific hybridization and ploidy change affected gene expression via genetic and epigenetic alterations immediately upon allopolyploid formation, and some obtained transcripts derived fragments (TDFs) probably could be used in the research of molecular mechanism of Arachis allopolyploidization which contribute to thwe genetic diploidization of newly formed allopolyploids.  Our research is valuable for understanding of peanut evolution and improving the utilization of putative and beneficial genes from the wild peanut.

Chitin is an important content in the exoskeletons of arthropods, and its hydrolyzation is catalyzed by chitinases during the process of molting, thus, the chitinases are considered as ideal target to interfere the growth of arthropods.  This study intends to clarify the characteristic of the chitinases during the development of Tetranychus cinnabarinus, and screen out important genes as potential control targets.  The results showed that the total enzyme concentration of chitinases was significantly higher in larva, the first and second nymph than that in egg and adult.  Base on the transcriptome data, six unigenes encoding chitinases were identified and their expression patterns in different developmental stages were detected. The expressions of TcCHIT1 and TcCHIT10 showed high abundance during the molting process and their expression change during the developmental stages was consistent with the enzyme concentration.  The full-length of these two genes were further cloned, and the structural characteristics of their proteins were analyzed by constructing the three-dimensional structure model.  The results provide basic information to understand the characteristic of chitinases in T. cinnabarinus and might be considered as target for control.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects on chemical and microbiological properties of paddy soil of short-term biochar, straw, and chemical fertilizers compared with chemical fertilization alone.  Five soil fertilization treatments were evaluated: regular chemical fertilizers (RF), straw+regular chemical fertilizers (SRF), straw biochar+regular chemical fertilizers (SCRF), bamboo biochar (BC)+regular chemical fertilizers (BCRF), and straw biochar+70% regular chemical fertilizers (SC+70%RF).  Their effects were investigated after approximately 1.5 years.  The soil pH and cation exchange capacity (CEC) were significantly higher in biochar-treated soils.  The soil phosphorous (P) and potassium (K) contents increased with biochar application.  The soil Colwell P content was significantly increased with the addition of straw biochar in the treatments of SCRF and SC+70%RF.  The oxygen (O):carbon (C) ratio doubled in BC picked from the soil.  This indicated that BC underwent a significant oxidation process in the soil.  The denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) fingerprints of microbial communities differed among the treatments.  Soils with added biochar had higher Shannon diversity and species richness indices than soils without biochars.  The results suggest that biochar can improve soil fertility.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the pharmacokinetics of cefquinome in plasma and milk samples of lactating Chinese Holstein following a single intramammary administration into one quarter at the dose of 75 mg. Residue depletion of cefquinome in milk administrated at one quarter following three consecutive infusions at the same dose were also carried out. Cefquinome concentrations in plasma and milk were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) method. A non-compartmental analysis was used to obtain the pharmacokinetic parameters of cefquinome. Following the single treatment, cefquinome wasn’t detected in any of the plasma samples. The concentration of cefquinome in milk reached peaked values (Cmax) of (599.00±322.00) μg mL-1 at 2 h after administration (Tmax), elimination half-life (t1/2λz) was (4.63±0.26) h, area under the concentration-time curve (AUC0-∞) was (4 890.19±1 906.98) μg mL-1 h, and mean residence time (MRT) was (6.03±2.27) h. In residue depletion study, cefquinome concentrations in 5 out of 6 milk samples at 72 h were lower than the maximum residue limit fixed by the European regulatory agency (20 μg kg-1 for cefquinome) and cefquinome still could be detected in milk of treated quarters at 120 h post-treatment. The maximum concentration (Cmax) of cefquinome in milk from treated quarters was (486.50±262.92) μg mL-1 and arrived at 6 h after administration (Tmax), elimination half-life (t1/2λz) was (6.30±0.76) h, area under the concentration-time curve (AUC0-∞) was (44747.79±11434.43) μg mL-1 h, and mean residence time (MRT) was (10.09±1.40) h. This study showed that cefquinome has the feature of poor penetration into blood and was eliminated quickly from milk in lactating cows after intramammary administration.

Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) bacterial wilt (BW), caused by Ralstonia solanacearum (RS), is a devastating soil-borne disease that poses a significant threat to peanut yield and quality.  Nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NBS-LRR) proteins are a class of plant-specific immune receptors that recognize pathogen-secreted effector molecules and activate immune responses to resist pathogen infections.  However, the precise functions of AhCN genes (CN is a class of NLR genes lacking LRR structural domains) in peanut plants are not fully understood.  In this study, a total of 150 AhCN genes were identified and classified into nine subfamilies based on a systematic phylogenetic analysis.  The AhCN genes showed highly conserved structural features; promoter cis-elements indicated involvement in plant hormone signaling and defense responses.  Following inoculation with RS, the highly resistant peanut variety ‘H108’ significantly outperformed the susceptible variety ‘H107’ in physiological indicators such as plant height, main stem diameter, and fresh weight, likely due to inhibition of bacterial proliferation and diffusion in the stem vascular bundle.  AhCN34 was found to be significantly upregulated in H108 compared to H107 during plant infection and in response to treatment with each of three plant hormones.  Importantly, AhCN34 overexpression in peanut leaves enhanced their resistance to BW.  These findings demonstrate the great potential of AhCN34 for applications in peanut resistance breeding.  Our identification and characterization of AhCN genes provide insights into the mechanisms underlying peanut BW resistance and inform future research into genetic methods of improving peanut BW resistance.

Geese, descendants of migratory birds, have preserved the distinct reproductive and lipid metabolism traits of their wild ancestors.  Therefore, compared to other poultry, geese have lower egg production ability and a more sensitive susceptibility to fatty liver.  Recent research underscores the impact of lipid metabolism disorders on female reproductive health.  In this context, we observed reproductive disorders (RD) and lipid metabolism anomalies in certain geese populations.  This study systematically elucidated the differences between RD and normal geese at various levels, including genomics, transcriptomics, bile acid metabolomics, and microbiomics, revealing the crucial role of microorganisms.  Our study provides a thorough examination of the ovarian anatomical, histological, and transcriptomic profiles between normal and RD geese.  Genomic analyses pinpoint mutations in genes associated with bile acid metabolism, highlighting their potential role in RD pathogenesis.  The genomic discoveries are substantiated by precise bile acid assays and ileum transcriptome analyses, which expose a significant disruption in bile acid absorption, activation of FXR, and an increase in serum chenodeoxycholic acid (CDCA) concentrations within RD geese.  Notably, 16S rRNA sequencing uncovers significantly greater beta diversity in the ileum microbiota of RD geese as compared to the normal group.  Both Wilcoxon rank sum test and LEfSe analyses highlighted a marked increase in Romboutsia abundance in RD geese. Experimental cultivation of microbiota with CDCA supplementation confirms the impact of CDCA on Romboutsia lituseburensis (R. lituseburensis) proliferation. Gavage experiments with R. lituseburensis elucidates its involvement in primary follicle reduction via immune-mediated pathways.  Collectively, our multi-faceted analysis unravels the intricate involvement of Romboutsia in goose RD, offering insights from genetic, physiological, and microbial dimensions. Our findings not only deepen our understanding of the etiology of RD in geese but also suggest potential avenues for therapeutic interventions targeting bile acid metabolism and the modulation of specific microbiota components. 

Red fruit peel is one of the most valuable economic traits in pear and is mainly determined by anthocyanins. Many pear cultivars with a red peel originated from bud sports; however, little is known about the genetic mechanisms underlying this trait. We have previously identified a mutant PpBBX24 containing a 14-nucleotide deletion in the coding region (Ppbbx24-del) as the only known variant associated with the red coloration of the mutant 'Red Zaosu' pear (Pyrus pyrifolia White Pear Group). Herein, we analyzed the role of the mutant gene in red coloration and its mechanism of action. The results showed that light promoted red peel coloration in 'Red Zaosu' pear, and Ppbbx24-del had positive effects on light-induced anthocyanin biosynthesis, while normal PpBBX24 had the opposite effects. Transient and stable transformation experiments confirmed that Ppbbx24-del could promote anthocyanin accumulation in pear fruit peels, calli, and tobacco flowers. Due to the loss of NLS and VP domains, Ppbbx24-del co-localized in the nucleus and cytoplasm, whereas PpBBX24 localized only in the nucleus. Real-time PCR and transcriptome analyses indicated that PpMYB10 and PpHY5 is highly expressed in 'Red Zaosu' pear. In yeast one-hybrid and dual luciferase assays, Ppbbx24-del and PpHY5 independently promoted the expression of PpCHS, PpCHI, and PpMYB10 by binding to their promoters; however, PpBBX24 did not affect the expression of these genes. Additionally, we found that Ppbbx24-del and PpHY5 had additive effects on the expression of PpCHS, PpCHI, and PpMYB10, as they promote the expression of anthocyanin synthesis genes separately. The co-expression of PpBBX24 and PpHY5 inhibited the activation of downstream genes by PpHY5, and this was attributed to the interaction between the two loci. In conclusion, our results clarify the molecular mechanism by which mutant Ppbbx24-del and PpBBX24 exert opposite effects in the regulation of anthocyanin accumulation in pear. These findings lay an important theoretical foundation for the use of Ppbbx24-del to create red pear cultivars.