Dietary threonine (Thr) deficiency increases hepatic triglyceride content and reduces sebum and abdominal fat percentages in lean type (LT), but not in fatty type (FT) Pekin ducks.  However, the molecular changes regarding the role of Thr in lipid metabolism in LT and FT ducks induced by Thr deficiency remains unknown.  This study compared differential expression gene profiles related to lipid metabolism in FT and LT Pekin ducks affected by Thr deficiency.  We performed transcriptomic profiling and scanned the gene expression in the liver, sebum, and abdominal fat of Pekin ducks fed either Thr-deficient or Thr-adequate diet for 21 days from 14 to 35 days of age.  There were 187, 52, and 50 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) identified in the liver, sebum, and abdominal fat of LT ducks affected by Thr deficiency, of which 12, 9, and 5 genes were involved in lipid metabolism, respectively.  Thr deficiency altered the expression of 27, 6, and 3 genes in FT ducks’ liver, sebum, and abdominal fat, respectively.  None of the DEGs had a relationship with lipid metabolism in FT ducks.  KEGG analysis showed that the DEGs in the LT ducks’ livers were enriched in lipid metabolism pathways (linolenic acid metabolism, glycerophospholipid metabolism, and arachidonic acid metabolism) and amino acid metabolism pathways (biosynthesis of amino acids, phenylalanine metabolism, β-alanine metabolism, and glycine, serine and threonine metabolisms).  The DEGs in the sebum and abdominal fat of LT ducks were not enriched in lipid and amino acid metabolic pathways.  Additionally, DEGs involved in lipid metabolism were found to be upregulated by Thr deficiency in LT ducks, such as malic enzyme 3 (ME3), acyl-CoA synthetase short-chain family member 2 (ACSS2) in liver, and lipase member M (LIPM) in sebum.  In summary, dietary Thr deficiency regulated the gene expression involved in lipid metabolism in the liver, sebum, and abdominal fat of Pekin ducks in a genotype-dependent manner.

The mutation of the gene encoding a stearoyl-acyl carrier protein fatty acid desaturase (ssi2) has been proved to enhance pathogen resistance in several plants, while it’s potential to regulate biotic and abiotic stresses in wheat is still unclear.  In this study, we cloned TaSSI2 gene in wheat and provided several evidences of its involvement in multiple biological functions.  By using barley stripe mosaic virus (BSMV)-induced gene silencing (VIGS) in wheat, it was found that TaSSI2 negatively regulated both powdery mildew and Fusarium head blight (FHB) resistance, which was consistent with the phenotype observed in knock-out mutants of Kronos.  The expression of TaSSI2 was down-regulated by in vitro treatments of methyl jasmonate (MeJA), but positively regulated by salicylic acid (SA) and abscisic acid (ABA), implying the cross-talk between different hormone signaling pathways involved in wheat to regulate biotic stresses is still to be elucidated.  Furthermore, the up-regulated expression of PR4 and PR5 indicated that TaSSI2 probably regulated FHB resistance by depressing the SA signaling pathway in wheat.  In addition, the over-expression of TaSSI2 increased the content of linolenic acid (18:3) and subsequently enhanced drought tolerance of transgenic Brachypodium.  This phenomenon might be associated with its subcellular localization in the whole cytosol, partly overlapping with Golgi apparatus and the secreted vesicles.  As a stearoyl-acyl carrier protein fatty acid desaturase, TaSSI2 was proposed to be involved in cell lipid metabolism and carried targets out of the cell from membrane or wax synthesis, resulting in enhanced drought tolerance in plant.

Understanding of how combinations of agronomic options can be used to improve the grain yield and nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) of winter wheat is limited.  A three-year experiment involving four integrated management strategies was conducted from 2013 to 2015 in Tai’an, Shandong Province, China, to evaluate changes in grain yield and NUE.  The integrated management treatments were as follows: current practice (T1); improvement of current practice (T2); high-yield management (T3), which aimed to maximize grain yield regardless of the cost of resource inputs; and integrated soil and crop system management (T4) with a higher seeding rate, delayed sowing date, and optimized nutrient management.  Seeding rates increased by 75 seeds m^–2 with each treatment from T1 (225 seeds m^–2) to T4 (450 seeds m^–2).  The sowing dates were delayed from T1 (5th Oct.) to T2 and T3 (8th Oct.), and to T4 treatment (12th Oct.).  T1, T2, T3, and T4 received 315, 210, 315, and 240 kg N ha^–1, 120, 90, 210 and 120 kg P₂O₅ ha^–1, 30, 75, 90, and 45 kg K₂O ha^–1, respectively.  The ratio of basal application to topdressing for T1, T2, T3, and T4 was 6:4, 5:5, 4:6, and 4:6, respectively, with the N topdressing applied at regreening for T1 and at jointing stage for T2, T3, and T4.  The P fertilizers in all treatments were applied as basal fertilizer.  The K fertilizer for T1 and T2 was applied as basal fertilizer while the ratio of basal application to topdressing (at jointing stage) of K fertilizer for both T3 and T4 was 6:4.  T1, T2, T3, and T4 were irrigated five, four, four and three times, respectively.  Treatment T3 produced the highest grain yield among all treatments over three years and the average yield was 9 277.96 kg ha^–1.  Grain yield averaged across three years with the T4 treatment (8 892.93 kg ha^–1) was 95.85% of that with T3 and was 21.72 and 6.10% higher than that with T1 (7 305.95 kg ha^–1) and T2 (8 381.41 kg ha^–1), respectively.  Treatment T2 produced the highest NUE of all the integrated treatments.  The NUE with T4 was 95.36% of that with T2 and was 51.91 and 25.62% higher than that with T1 and T3, respectively.  The N uptake efficiency (UPE) averaged across three years with T4 was 50.75 and 16.62% higher than that with T1 and T3, respectively.  The N utilization efficiency (UTE) averaged across three years with T4 was 7.74% higher than that with T3.  The increased UPE with T4 compared with T3 could be attributed mostly to the lower available N in T4, while the increased UTE with T4 was mainly due to the highest N harvest index and low grain N concentration, which consequently led to improved NUE.  The net profit for T4 was the highest among four treatments and was 174.94, 22.27, and 28.10% higher than that for T1, T2, and T3, respectively.  Therefore, the T4 treatment should be a recommendable management strategy to obtain high grain yield, high NUE, and high economic benefits in the target region, although further improvements of NUE are required.

    Pollution of residual plastic film in arable lands is a severe problem in China. In this study, the status of residual film and influential factors were investigated using the methods of farm survey in combination with questionnaires and quadrat sampling at a large number of field sites in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. The results showed that the amount of film utilization increased largely and reached to 1.8×10⁵ t in 2013. Similarly, the mulching area also substantially increased in recent decades, and reached to 2.7×10⁵ ha in the same year. According to the current survey, 60.7% of the sites presented a greater mulch residue than the national film residue standard (75 kg ha^–1), and the maximum residual amount reached 502.2 kg ha^–1 in Turpan, Xinjiang. The film thickness, the mulching time and the crop type all influenced mulch residue. The thickness of the film had significantly negative correlation with the amount of residual film (P<0.05), while the mulching years had significantly positive correlation with it (P<0.05). The total amount of residual film in Xinjiang was 3.43×10⁵ t in 2011, which accounted for 15.3% of the cumulative dosage of mulching. Among all the crops, the cotton fields had the largest residual amount of mulch film (158.4 kg ha^–1), and also the largest contribution (2.6×10⁵ tons) to the total amount of residual film in Xinjiang.

    The pleiotropic drug resistance (PDR) sub-family of adenosine triphosphate (ATP)-binding cassette (ABC) transporter had been reported to participate in diverse biological processes of plant. In this study, we cloned three novel PDR genes in Fusarium head blight (FHB) resistant wheat cultivar Ning 7840, which were located on wheat chromosomes 6A, 6B and 6D. In phylogeny, these genes were members of cluster I together with AePDR7 and BdPDR7. Subcellular localization analysis showed that TaPDR7 was expressed on the plasmalemma. The quantitative real time PCR (RT-PCR) analysis showed that this gene and its probable orthologues in chromosomes 6B and 6D were both up-regulated sharply at 48 h after infected by Fusarium graminearum and trichothecene deoxynivalenol (DON) in spike. When knocking down the transcripts of all TaPDR7 members by barely stripe mosaic virus-induced gene silencing (BSMV-VIGS) system, it could promote the F. graminearum hyphae growth and made larger pathogen inoculation points in Ning 7840, which suggested that TaPDR7 might play an important role in response to F. graminearum. Although salicylic acid (SA), methyl jasmonate (MeJA) and abscisic acid (ABA) had been reported to possibly regulate wheat FHB resistance, here, we found that the three members of TaPDR7 were negatively regulated by these three hormones but positively regulated by indoleacetic acid (IAA).

Fusarium head blight (FHB), caused primarily by Fusarium graminearum, is a destructive disease of wheat throughout the world. However, the mechanisms of host resistance to FHB are still largely unclear. Deoxynivalenol (DON) produced by F. graminearum which enhances the pathogen to spread could be converted into inactive form D3G by UDP-glycosyltransferases (UGTs). A DON responsive UGT gene, designated as TaUGT4, was first cloned from wheat in this study. The putative open reading frame (ORF) of TaUGT4 was 1 386 bp, encoding 461 amino acids protein. TaUGT4 was placed on chromosome 2D using a set of nulli-tetrasomic lines of wheat cultivar Chinese Spring (CS). When fused with eGFP at C terminal, TaUGT4 was shown to localize in cytoplasm of the transformed tobacco cells. The transcriptional analysis revealed that TaUGT4 was strongly induced by F. graminearum or DON in both of FHB-resistant cultivar Sumai 3 and susceptible cultivar Kenong 199, especially in Sumai 3 under DON treatment. Similar increase of TaUGT4 expression was observed in Sumai 3 and Kenong 199 in response to salicylic acid (SA) treatment. But interestingly, the transcripts level of TaUGT4 in Sumai 3 showed significantly higher than that in Kenong 199 after treated with methyl jasmonate (MeJA). According to the expression patterns, TaUGT4 might lead to different effects between FHB-resistant genotype and susceptible genotype in the process against F. graminearum inoculation. It had also been discussed in this paper that JA signaling pathway might play a significant role in the resistance against F. graminearum compared to SA signaling pathway.

An experiment was carried out to investigate the relative bioavailability of tribasic zinc (Zn) sulfate relative to Zn sulfate for broilers fed a conventional corn-soybean meal diet. A total of 504 1-d-old Arbor Acres commercial male chicks were randomly assigned by body weight of birds to one of seven treatments involving a 2×3 factorial arrangement with three levels of added Zn (30, 60, or 90 mg of Zn kg–1) and two Zn sources (tribasic Zn sulfate and Zn sulfate) plus a control with no added Zn for an experimental phase of 14 d. Plasma Zn, tibia ash Zn, pancreas Zn, and pancreas metallothionein (MT) messenger RNA (mRNA) were analyzed at 6 or 14 d of age post-hatching. The results showed that plasma Zn, tibia ash Zn, pancreas Zn, and pancreas MT mRNA increased linearly (P<0.002) as dietary Zn concentration increased at 6 or 14 d of age. The R2 for a linear model was greater on d 6 than on d 14 for the above 4 responsive criteria, and among these indices, the fitting of the tibia ash Zn concentration was the best (R2=0.99). Therefore, based on slope ratios from the multiple linear regressions of the above 4 indices of the birds at 6 d of age on daily intake of dietary Zn, the bioavailabilities of tribasic Zn sulfate relative to Zn sulfate (100%) were 95.6% (P=0.18), 83.5% (P=0.01), 87.9% (P=0.53), and 75.9% (P=0.38) for the tibia ash Zn, pancreas Zn, plasma Zn, and pancreas MT mRNA, respectively. The results indicated that generally, Zn from tribasic Zn sulfate was as available as Zn from Zn sulfate for broilers.

Cadmium (Cd2+) is one of the major widespread environmental pollutants, and can cause serious problems to all organisms.
Lead (Pb2+) is another wide spread dangerous heavy metal. Tobacco is a popular growing economic crop in China. Most
tobacco growing region soils contain excessive Cd2+ and Pb2+. To assess anatomic changes of tobacco roots under Cd2+,
Pb2+, and Cd2++Pb2+ chronic stress, a pot experiment was carried out in field. The tobacco seedlings with 6 leaves were
transplanted to pots in which soil was placed. The amounts of Cd2+ added to soil were 0, 3, 6, 10, 30, 60, and 100 mg kg-1
dry soil. The amounts of Pb2+ added to soil were 0, 150, 300, 450, 600, 750, and 1 000 mg kg-1 dry soil. The amounts of
Cd2++Pb2+ added to soil were 0+0, 3+150, 6+300, 10+450, 30+600, 60+750, and 100+1 000 mg kg-1 dry soil. The contents of Cd2+ and Pb2+ in root systems were determined by inductively coupled plasma, and the anatomical structure was studied by method of paraffin sectioning. The results revealed that the amounts of exchangeable Cd2+ and Pb2+ and carbonate bound Cd2+ and Pb2+ in soil increased with the amounts of Cd2+ and Pb2+ added to soil, and the contents of both Cd2+ and Pb2+ in roots were significantly increased along with stress time and the amounts of Cd2+ and Pb2+ added to soil. The growing of tobacco in Cd2+ and Cd2++Pb2+ polluted soil for 50, 100, and 150 d resulted in some abnormal external morphological and anatomical changes in ripe region of lateral roots. All the abnormal roots had abnormal vascular cylinders, and the ratio of abnormal external morphological and anatomical changes of roots positively correlated with the Cd2+ contents in roots and stress time. While, there were no abnormal external morphological and anatomical changes of roots under Pb2+ stress. It was suggested that Cd2+ stress could cause abnormal anatomic changes of roots, but Pb2+ stress could not.