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Escherichia coli (E. coli) is closely associated with the occurrence of puerperal metritis in dairy cows. E. coli carries some the virulence and multi-drug resistant genes, which pose a serious threat to the health of postpartum cows. In this study, E. coli was isolated and identified from the uterine contents of postpartum cows with puerperal metritis in the Ningxia region of China, and its phylogenetic subgroups were determined. Meanwhile, virulence and drug resistance genes carried by E. coli and drug sensitivity were detected, and the characteristics of virulence and drug resistance genes distribution in E. coli phylogroups were further analyzed. The results showed that the isolation rate of E. coli in puerperal metritis samples was 95.2%. E. coli was mainly divided into phylogroups B2 and D, followed by groups A and B1, and was more connected to O157:H7, O169:H4, and ECC-1470 type strains. The virulence genes were mainly dominated by ompF (100%), traT (100%), fimH (97%), papC (96%), csgA (95%), Ang43 (93.9%), and ompC (93%), and the resistance genes were dominated by TEM (99%), tetA (71.7%), aac(3)II (66.7%), and cmlA (53.5%). Additionally, it was observed that the virulence and resistance gene phenotypes could be divided into two subgroups, with subgroup B2 and D having the highest distributions. Drug sensitivity tests also revealed that the E. coli was most sensitive to the fluoroquinolones enrofloxacin, followed by macrolides, aminoglycosides, tetracyclines, β-lactams, peptides and sulfonamides, and least sensitive to lincosamides. These results imply that pathogenic E. coli, which induces puerperal metritis of dairy cows in the Ningxia region of China, primarily belongs to the group B2 and D, contains multiple virulence and drug resistance genes, Moreover, E. coli has evolved resistance to several drugs including penicillin, lincomycin, cotrimoxazole, and streptomycin. It will offer specific guidelines reference for the prevention and treatment of puerperal metritis in dairy cows with E. coli infections in the Ningxia region of China.

Seasonal estrus is an important factor limiting the fertility of some animals such as sheep. Promoting estrus in the anestrus season is one of the major ways in improving the fecundity of seasonally breeding animals. The pineal-hypothalamus-pituitary-ovary (PHPO) axis plays a decisive role in regulating animal reproduction. However, the molecular mechanisms by which the PHPO axis regulates seasonal reproduction in animals are not well understood, especially in Tan sheep. To this end, we collected pineal, hypothalamus, pituitary and ovary tissues from Tan sheep during estrus and anestrus for RNA-Sequencing, and performed bioinformatics analysis on the entire regulatory axis of the pineal-hypothalamic-pituitary-ovary (PHPO). The results showed that 940, 1,638, 750, and 971 DEGs (differentially expressed genes, DEGs) were identified in pineal, hypothalamus, pituitary and ovary, respectively. GO analysis showed that DEGs from PHPO axis-related tissues were mainly enriched in “biological processes” such as transmembrane transport, peptide and amide biosynthesis and DNA synthesis. Meanwhile, KEGG enrichment analysis showed that the bile acid secretion pathway and the neuroactive ligand-receptor interaction pathway were significantly enriched. Additionally, four potential candidate genes related to seasonal reproduction (VEGFA, CDC20, ASPM, and PLCG2) were identified by gene expression profiling and protein-protein interaction (PPI) analysis. These findings will contribute to be better understanding of seasonal reproduction regulation in Tan sheep and will serve as a useful reference for molecular breeding of high fertility Tan sheep.

PurposeHigh-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) remains the most lethal female cancer due to metastasis. CircRNAs are recently identified to be modified by N6-methyladenosine (m6A) in many cells. However, the significance of m6A-modified circular RNAs (circRNAs) has not been elucidated in HGSOC peritoneal metastasis. Here, we aimed to investigate the participation and potential functions of m6A-modified circRNAs in HGSCO peritoneal metastasis.MethodsCancerous tissues were collected from the in situ and the peritoneal metastasis lesions of HGSCO patients. M6A-tagged circRNAs were identified by m6A-modified RNA immunoprecipitation sequencing (m6A-RIP-seq). Gene Ontology (GO) annotation and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analyses were performed to predict the potential functions of the m6A-modified circRNAs.ResultsFor the m6A-modified circRNAs, 259 were upregulated and 227 were downregulated in the peritoneal metastasis than in the situ lesions of HGSCO patients. For the m6A peaks, 1541 were upregulated and 1293 were downregulated in the peritoneal metastasis than in the in situ lesions of HGSCO patients. For the differential expressed circRNAs, 1911(19.6%) were upregulated and 2883(29.6%) were downregulated in the peritoneal metastasis than in the in situ lesions of HGSCO patients. The upregulated m6A-modified circRNAs were associated with the HIF-1 signaling. The downregulated m6A-modified circRNAs were associated with the MAPK signaling.ConclusionsThis work firstly identified the transcriptome-wide map of m6A-modified circRNAs in peritoneal metastasis of HGSCO. Our findings provided novel evidences about the participation of m6A-modified circRNAs via HIF-1 and MAPK signaling and a new insight in molecular target of HGSCO peritoneal metastasis.

In order to avoid hemolysis caused by direct dietary of kidney tea saponin, complex gels based on gellan gum (GG) and soybean isolate protein (SPI) loaded with saponin were created in the present study by using a self-assembly technique. Studies were conducted on the rheological characteristics, encapsulation effectiveness, molecular structure, microstructure, and hypoglycemic activity of GG/SPI-saponin gels. Increasing the concentration of SPI helped to enhance the strength and energy storage modulus (G′) of the gels, and the incorporation of high acylated saponin allowed the whole gel to undergo sol–gel interconversion. The encapsulation efficiency showed that GG/SPI-saponin was 84.52 ± 0.78% for saponin. Microstructural analysis results suggested that GG and SPI were bound by hydrogen bonds. The in vitro digestion results also indicated that saponin could be well retained in the stomach and subsequently released slowly in the intestine. In addition, the in vitro hypoglycemic activity results showed that the IC50 of encapsulated saponin against α-glucosidase and α-amylase were at 2.4790 mg/mL and 1.4317 mg/mL, respectively, and may be used to replace acarbose for hypoglycemia.

In order to complete the high-precision calibration of the planetary rover navigation camera using limited initial data in-orbit, we proposed a joint adjustment model with additional multiple constraints. Specifically, a base model was first established based on the bundle adjustment model, second-order radial and tangential distortion parameters. Then, combining the constraints of collinearity, coplanarity, known distance and relative pose invariance, a joint adjustment model was constructed to realize the in orbit self-calibration of the navigation camera. Given the problem of directionality in line extraction of the solar panel due to large differences in the gradient amplitude, an adaptive brightness-weighted line extraction method was proposed. Lastly, the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm for nonlinear least squares was used to obtain the optimal results. To verify the proposed method, field experiments and in-orbit experiments were carried out. The results suggested that the proposed method was more accurate than the self-calibration bundle adjustment method, CAHVOR method (a camera model used in machine vision for three-dimensional measurements), and vanishing points method. The average error for the flag of China and the optical solar reflector was only 1 mm and 0.7 mm, respectively. In addition, the proposed method has been implemented in China’s deep space exploration missions.