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The Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography-Triple-Time of Flight Mass Spectrometer (UPLC-Triple-TOF-MS/MS) based platform was developed to investigate the serum metabolic profile associated with the growth performance in Chinese softshell turtle fed with the diet added with Traditional Chinese Medicines (TCMs) feeding additive. 0.0%, 1.0%, 2.0%, 3.0%, 4.0% of TCMs were added to the base ration of the control group (CG), TCMs treatment group1 (TG1), TCMs treatment group2 (TG2), TCMs treatment group3 (TG3) and TCMs treatment group4 (TG4), respectively. Compared with control group (CG), the weight gain and special growth ratio firstly increased and lately decreased with increased dietary TCMs levels. The highest weight gain (5.824 ± 1.205) and specific growth rate (3.887 ± 0.367) were found in the TCMs treatment group 2 (TG2) (P < 0.05), and the lowest feed conversion ratio (1.785±0.015) also appeared in the TG2 group (P < 0.05). In the metabolomics assay, a total of 795 (VIP> 1) out of 3089 variable metabolites were significantly different between the TG2 and CG. 43 potential biomarkers between TG2 and CG groups were finally screened out on the basis of VIP > 1 and P < 0.05. The potential networks and pathways for the model were explored using MetaboAnalyst. A total of 43 potential biomarkers were confirmed involving thirteen different metabolic pathways. Following the diet added with 2% TCMs feeding additive, five metabolic pathways were affected, these included the following: phenylalanine, tyrosine and tryptophan biosynthesis, tyrosine metabolism, cysteine and methionine metabolism and arginine biosynthesis. This study indicated that the dietary supplementation TCMs as feed additives could influence the growth performance of the healthy juvenile turtles, and the optimal dose of supplementing TCMs to juvenile turtleswas 20 g/kg in diet.

Northern snakehead, Ophiocephalus argus Cantor, is an endemic freshwater fish in China. However, wild stocks of O. argus are dwindling sharply. Further, water conservancy projects, environmental pollution and human activities have caused the decrease of wild stocks, which has attracted much attention. Here, we have investigated the genomic information of O. argus using IlluminaHiseq 4000 sequencing. The transcriptomes of O. argus were sequenced by Illumina technology. A total of 67,564 sequences from 79,500,964 paired-end reads were generated, 33,710 unigenes were annotated based on protein databases (NCBI nonredundant (NR) databases). In total, 7182 unigenes had the clusters of orthologous group (COG) classifications, 33,710 unigenes were assigned to 59 gene ontology (GO) terms. Further, a total of 21,464 simple sequence repeats (SSRs) from 67,564 unigenes and 113,518 singlenucleotide polymorphism (SNP) sites among 335 Mclean reads were yielded for O. argus based on a transcriptome-wide search. The new transcriptome data which is presented in this study for O. argus will provide valuable information for gene discovery and downstream applications, such as phylogenetic analysis, gene-expression profiling and identification of genetic markers (SSRs and SNP). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which aims to determine the variation in air temperature in a burrow of Chinese pangolin, Manis pentadactyla, during winter. It mentions that the study collected air temperature inside the burrow, which is the enlarged bottom where the animal resides, and outside the burrow, which is from the soil surface at the burrow entrance, using a 24-hour automatic temperature recorder. It notes that the study found that the air temperature in the burrow is stable while the air temperature outside the burrow fluctuated dramatically. Furthermore, the study determined no significant relationship between inside and outside temperatures in the burrow.