Muscle fibers are the main component of skeletal muscle and undergo maturation through the formation of myotubes.  During early development, a population of skeletal muscle satellite cells (SSCs) proliferate into myoblasts.  The myoblasts then undergo further differentiation and fusion events, leading to the development of myotubes.  However, the mechanisms involved in the transition from SSCs to myotube formation remain unclear.  In this study, we characterized changes in the proteomic and transcriptomic expression profiles of SSCs, myoblasts (differentiation for 2 d) and myotubes (differentiation for 10 d).  Proteomic analysis identified SLMAP and STOM as potentially associated with myotube formation.  In addition, some different changes in MyoD, MyoG, Myosin7 and Desmin occurred after silencing SLMAP and STOM, suggesting that they may affect changes in the myogenic marker.  GO analysis indicated that the differentiation and migration factors SVIL, ENSCHIG00000026624 (AQP1) and SERPINE1 enhanced the transition from SSCs to myoblasts, accompanied by changes in the apoptotic balance.  In the myoblast vs. myotube group, candidates related to cell adhesion and signal transduction were highly expressed in the myotubes.  Additionally, CCN2, TGFB1, MYL2 and MYL4 were identified as hub-candidates in this group.  These data enhance our existing understanding of myotube formation during early development and repair.

Locusts have caused periodic disasters in the recorded history of humankind.  Up to now, locust disaster is still the biggest threat to the world’s agricultural production.  The desert locust Schistocerca gregaria is one of the most harmful locusts, which has caused massive food crises, economic losses, and ecological disasters.  The desert locust is a migratory insect pest that occurs year-round in the tropic and subtropical regions.  Under the wind and seasonal alternation, it moves and flies in the African continent and West Asia.  Desert locust damages the stems and leaves of more than 300 plants, including Gramineae, Tribulus terrestris, and Euphorbiaceae.  Locusts cause devastating disasters to local plants, especially field crops, and significantly threaten food security.  To date, voluminous research has been conducted regarding the ecology and management of desert locusts.  This review represents an effort to summarize the basic information on the biology and ecology, distribution, damage, and economic impact of desert locusts, examine the recent developments in integrated locust management, and make recommendations for future research.  

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is a model plant for research on fruit development and stress response, in which gene expression analysis is frequently conducted.  Quantitative PCR (qPCR) is a widely used technique for gene expression analysis, and the selection of reference genes may affect the accuracy of results and even conclusions.  Although there have been some frequently used reference genes in tomato, it has been shown that the expressions of some of these genes are not constant in different tissues and environmental conditions.  Moreover, little information on genomic identification of reference genes is available in tomato.  Here, we mined the publicly available transcriptional sequencing data and screened out fifteen candidate reference genes, and the expression stability of these candidate genes and seven traditionally used ones were evaluated under stress and hormone treatment.  The results showed that over half of the selected candidate references were housekeeping genes in tomato cells.  Among the candidate reference genes and the traditionally used ones, the most stably expressed genes varied under different treatments, and most of these genes were recommended as preferred reference genes at least once except Solyc04g009030 and Solyc07g066610, two traditionally used reference genes.  This study provides some novel reference genes in tomato, and the preferred reference genes under different environmental stimuli, which may be useful for future research.  Our study suggests that excavating stably expressed genes from transcriptome sequencing data is a reliable approach to screening reference genes for qPCR analysis.