Search

ABSTRACT: Copy number variation (CNV) is a crucial component of genetic diversity in the genome, serving as the foundation for the genetic architecture and phenotypic variability of complex traits. In this study, we examined CNVs in the Danzhou (DZ) chicken, an indigenous breed exclusive to Hainan Province, China. By employing whole-genome resequencing data from 200 DZ chickens, we conducted a comprehensive genome-wide analysis of CNVs using CNVpytor and performed CNV-based genome-wide association studies (GWAS) on 6 body size traits, including body slope length (BSL), keel length (KeL), tibial length (TiL), tibial circumference (TiC), chest width (ChW), and chest depth (ChD) utilizing linear mixed model methods considering a genomic relationship matrix. We identified a total of 144,265 autosomal CNVs among the 200 individuals, comprising 67,818 deletions and 76,447 duplications. After merging these variants together, we obtained 4,824 distinct copy number variant regions, which accounted for approximately 20% of the chicken autosomal genome. Furthermore, we discovered several significantly associated CNV segments with body size traits located proximal to genes such as IHH, WNT6, WNT10A, LPR4, FZD2, WNT7B, and GNAS that have been extensively implicated in skeletal development and growth processes. These findings enhance our understanding of CNVs in chickens and their potential impact on body size traits by revealing candidate genes involved in the regulation of these traits. This establishes a solid framework for future studies and may prove particularly beneficial for exploring genetic structural variation in chickens.

It is challenging to reveal the catalytic mechanism of Cu/ZnO catalysts with multivalent copper and improve the performance of CO2 hydrogenation to methanol. We synthesized Cu/ZnO catalysts with different Cu:Zn ratios using acetylacetone salts as the precursors, in which Cu, Cu2O, CuO coexist. The catalytic activity was significantly associated with the abundance of Cu+ active sites on the surface and the formation of more Cu+-ZnO interfaces. When the ratio of Cu:Zn = 5:4, the catalyst without reduction pretreatment showed good performance, with a CO2 conversion rate of 12.9%, methanol selectivity of 85.1%, and the space-time yield of 0.238 gMeOH gcat−1 h−1. It was suggested that Cu+ tends to closely bind with ZnO, and the preparation method leads to more Cu+-ZnO interfaces. The synergistic interaction between Cu+ and ZnO promoted the adsorption and dissociation of CO2 and H2, verifying its dual effect on CO2 and H2 and promoting CO2 hydrogenation to methanol.

The intestinal microbiota and its metabolites are essential for the health and growth development of animals. Current research indicates that sex has a certain impact on the structure and function of the intestinal microbiota, but there are few reports on sex differences in intestinal microbiota metabolites, including those of castrated male animals. This study aimed to explore the impact of sex on the intestinal microbial metabolites of Hainan special wild boars (10 entire male pigs, 10 female pigs, and 10 castrated male pigs, denoted EM, FE, and CM, respectively) by employing non-targeted metabolomics and gas chromatography. A total of 1086 metabolites were detected, with the greatest number of differential metabolites observed between EM and FE (54 differential metabolites, including 18 upregulated and 36 downregulated metabolites), the fewest between CM and FE (7 differential metabolites, including 1 upregulated and 6 downregulated metabolites), and an intermediate number between CM and EM (47 differential metabolites, including 35 upregulated and 12 downregulated metabolites). Differential metabolites were involved in more pathways between EM and FE and between CM and EM, including amino acid metabolism and digestive system pathways, whereas differential metabolites were involved in the fewest pathways between CM and FE. Correlation analysis showed Ruminococcaceae UCG-009, uncultured_bacterium_o_SAR324_cladeMarine_group_B, and Candidatus Saccharimonas contributed to the production of metabolites such as trehalose, docosatrienoic acid, D(−)-beta-hydroxy butyric acid, and acetyl-DL-leucine. The levels of acetic acid, propionic acid, butyric acid, isobutyric acid, valeric acid, and isovaleric acid were significantly higher in EM than in FE, with CM falling between the two. Streptococcus, Lachnospiraceae_NK4A136_group and Rikenellaceae_RC9_gut_group showed a significant positive correlation with the production of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), while [Eubacterium]_coprostanoligenes_group, uncultured_bacterium_f_p–251–o5 and Ruminococcaceae_UCG–005 showed a significant negative correlation with the generation of SCFAs. This study provides foundational data and significant insights into precision feeding strategies for Hainan special wild boars of different sexes, as well as the study of sex differences in intestinal microbial metabolites in animals.

Objective: For enhancing the flavor characteristics and nutritional value of crayfish balls, and enriching the diversity of crayfish processed products. Methods: Determined the process of preparing the enzymatic hydrolysate from crayfish shell using compound enzymatic by single-factor and orthogonal array design. The nutritional quality of crayfish whole balls containing enzyme hydrolysate lyophilized powder and crayfish meat was analyzed. Results: The optimum condition for the preparation of crayfish shells enzymatic hydrolysate solution showed that 1 g crayfish shells powder with 0.5 mL of lactic acid was pretreated at 60 ℃ for 40 min. The dosage of compound enzymatic （papain and flavor protease mass ratio was 3∶1） was 5% （mass fraction）, the enzymatic hydrolysis temperature was 60 ℃, time was 4 h, and solid/liquid ratio was 1∶100 （g/mL）, and the protein extraction efficiency in the enzymatic hydrolysis was 64.69%. The content of heavy metals in enzyme hydrolysate lyophilized powder was in line with the limit of heavy metals in aquatic products, and contains calcium, magnesium, iron, selenium and other macro and trace elements required by the human body. Its composition analysis showed that the enzymatic hydrolysate lyophilized powder had a certain nutritional value, which could increase the fresh flavor of the food and met the safety standards. The nutrition and texture analysis of crayfish balls showed that the crayfish whole balls had high protein content, rich in a variety of amino acids, comprehensive in nutrition, unique flavor, and with good viscoelasticity and chewiness. Conclusion: The crayfish whole balls added with crayfish shell enzyme hydrolysate lyophilized powder and crayfish meat have a certain nutritional value, which enriches the variety of crayfish ready-to-eat products, improves the utilization rate of whole crayfish.

This is a paper in the field of mineral processing engineering. Application of ultra-fine grinding technology to treat phosphate ore can change the physical and chemical properties of phosphate containing minerals in phosphate ore, thus improving the dissolution and release of phosphorus in phosphate ore, so that it can be used as phosphate fertilizer. As an ultra-fine grinding equipment, the feasibility of using stirred mill to treat phosphate ore and the research on the influence of process parameters on grinding effect are not perfect. A phosphate ore in Hebei Province was wet ground by a vertical stirring mill in this paper.The particle size distribution of the ground product was detected by NKT6100-D laser particle size analyzer.The effect of grinding process parameters on the particle size composition of product and the content of newly formed particles was explored, and the product particle size was parametrically analyzed by R-R equation to determine the more appropriate operating process parameters. The results showed that under the conditions of agitator speed of 550 r/min, grinding concentration of 65%, filling rate of 60%, feed to ball ratio of 0.5 and grinding time of 30 min, the available phosphorus content and phosphorus solubility in citric acid of 8.75% and 74.03%, particle characteristic parameter b of 0.371 and uniformity coefficient n of 1.426 were obtained. It can be seen that it is feasible to use a vertical stirring mill for ultra-fine grinding of phosphate ore.

Abstract Introduction This study examines the associations between asthma and nitric oxide (NO) synthase (NOS) gene polymorphisms. Methods After a systematic literature search in electronic databases, studies were selected based on eligibility criteria. Data were extracted from research articles and were synthesized and tabulated. Where a particular polymorphism data were reported by multiple studies, meta‐analyses of odds ratios were performed, or odds ratios reported by individual studies were pooled. Results Twenty studies (4450 asthma patients and 5306 non‐asthmatic individuals) were identified. Many studies did not find any association between CCTTT repeat polymorphism in NOS2 gene and asthma. However, a study reported that pretreatment mean exhaled NO levels in asthmatics were found to be significantly higher in genotypes with higher number of CCTTT repeats. Also, alleles with

In this paper, in the context of rural revitalization + data platform, a grassroots employment platform for college students is designed according to the data architecture, and the data is processed hierarchically to achieve the organization and knowledge accumulation of cross-domain employment data, which makes multiple employment data standardized. Using data analysis parallelization algorithm and dimensionality reduction operation method, the training data are read and loaded into the distributed memory of the employment data platform to select the best employment features. According to the design platform of this paper, the employment rate for those employed in the eastern region and 80.16% in the central region has reached 91.15%. This paper's design model can improve employee efficiency and expand the grassroots employment space of college students, as indicated.

This paper performs feature extraction based on the Bayesian nonparametric model for smart sports courses to analyze the Gaussian process principle for composing random variables. The probability distribution of the parameters is estimated based on the known data set, given the input data vector to decompose the likelihood function. To calculate the posterior probabilities of the parameters, the kernel function features are analyzed to give the expressions of eigenvalues and eigenvectors, and data normalization is performed. According to the results, the experimental group had higher sports test scores than the control group, and the third test score of high-speed running reached 9 points. Therefore, colleges and universities should focus on cultivating students' innovative thinking abilities and helping them master sports knowledge and skills to achieve their educational goals.

Hainan yellow cattle are indigenous Zebu cattle from southern China known for their tolerance of heat and strong resistance to disease. Generations of adaptation to the tropical environment of southern China and decades of artificial breeding have left identifiable selection signals in their genomic makeup. However, information on the selection signatures of Hainan yellow cattle is scarce. Herein, we compared the genomes of Hainan yellow cattle with those of Zebu, Qinchuan, Nanyang, and Yanbian cattle breeds by the composite likelihood ratio method (CLR), Tajima’s D method, and identifying runs of homozygosity (ROHs), each of which may provide evidence of the genes responsible for heat tolerance in Hainan yellow cattle. The results showed that 5210, 1972, and 1290 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were screened by the CLR method, Tajima’s D method, and ROH method, respectively. A total of 453, 450, and 325 genes, respectively, were identified near these SNPs. These genes were significantly enriched in 65 Gene Ontology (GO) functional terms and 11 Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways (corrected p < 0.05). Five genes—Adenosylhomocysteinase-like 2, DnaJ heat shock protein family (Hsp40) member C3, heat shock protein family A (Hsp70) member 1A, CD53 molecule, and zinc finger and BTB domain containing 12—were recognized as candidate genes associated with heat tolerance. After further functional verification of these genes, the research results may benefit the understanding of the genetic mechanism of the heat tolerance in Hainan yellow cattle, which lay the foundation for subsequent studies on heat stress in this breed.

Aiming at the incomplete information of AUV cooperative confrontation, the incomplete information game theory is used to study the confrontation behavior of AUVs. Taking the remaining survival probability and weapon consumption as the evaluation indicators, adding the position error factor, an AUV game confrontation target allocation model for incomplete information is established. In terms of the Bayesian Nash equilibrium theory, the prior probabilities of the offensive and defensive strategy types are set by the virtual participant "Nature" in advance. Then the types of AUVs to be allocated are selected, and the judgment on the types of the target assignment strategies adopted by the other party are modified through the posterior probability. An algorithm for solving incomplete information target assignment based on the multi-target discrete particle swarms is proposed, and the Bayesian Nash equilibrium target assignment strategies of the two sides are obtained, which provides strategic choice help for the commander's combat command.

Abstract Background β-glucosidase is an important biomass-degrading enzyme and plays a vital role in generating renewable biofuels through enzymatic saccharification. In this study, we analyzed the transcriptome of Trichoderma harzianum HTASA derived from Hainan mangrove and identified a new gene encoding β-glucosidase Bgl3HB. And the biochemically characterization of β-glucosidase activity was performed. Results Bgl3HB showed substantial catalytic activity in the pH range of 3.0–5.0 and at temperatures of 40 ℃-60 ℃. The enzyme was found quite stable at 50 ℃ with a loss of only 33.4% relative activity after 240 min of heat exposure. In addition, all tested metal ions were found to promote the enzyme activity. The β-glucosidase activity of Bgl3HB was enhanced by 2.12-fold of its original activity in the presence of 5 M NaCl. Surprisingly, Bgl3HB also showed a remarkable ability to hydrolyze laminarin compared to other measured substrates. Enzyme efficiency was examined in the sugarcane bagasse saccharification processes, in which Bgl3HB with 5 M NaCl worked better supplementing Celluclast 1.5L than the commercial Novozyme 188 ascertained it as an admirably suited biocatalyst for the utilization of agricultural waste. In this work, this is the first report of a halophilic β-glucosidase from Trichoderma harzianum, and represents the β-glucosidase with the highest known NaCl activation concentration. And adding 5 M NaCl could enhance saccharification performance even better than commercial cellulase. Conclusions These results show that Bgl3HB has great promise as a highly stable and highly efficient cellulase with important future applications in the industrial production of biofuels.

Vegetative biomass contains a large number of macromolecular substances such as cellulose and hemicellulose, which can be used by microorganisms to produce biofuels and other chemical byproducts. In this study, a filamentous fungus with high β-glucosidase activity was isolated from mangrove soil in Hainan Province, China. Through morphological identification and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequence analysis, the strain was identified as Trichoderma reesei. Fermentation conditions were optimized with the response surface method to improve β-glucosidase activity. Inoculum, pH and liquid volume in flask were found to be the key factors. We further examined the optimal range of the three factors using steepest ascent path, and optimum conditions were further investigated according to a Box-Behnken design. We calculated the optimized fermentation conditions to be: carbon source (microcrystalline cellulose (MCC)) 1%, nitrogen source (yeast extract) 0.5%, pH 3.68, inoculum of 3.22 × 105 cfu/mL, temperature 28 °C, shaking speed of 160 rpm, and liquid volume in flask of 84.74 mL/250 mL. These conditions increased the β-glucosidase activity 6-fold to 1.13 U/mL compared to that before optimization. The resulting β-glucosidase had an optimum pH of 5.0 and an optimum temperature of 45 °C, and showed high thermal stability at 30-60 °C.

There have been several genome-wide association study (GWAS) reported for carcass, growth, and meat traits in chickens. Most of these studies have been based on single SNPs GWAS. In contrast, haplotype-based GWAS reports have been limited. In the present study, 2 Northeast Agricultural University broiler lines divergently selected for abdominal fat content (NEAUHLF) and genotyped with the chicken 60K SNP chip were used to perform a haplotype-based GWAS. The lean and fat chicken lines were selected for abdominal fat content for 11 yr. Abdominal fat weight was significantly different between the 2 lines; however, there was no difference for body weight between the lean and fat lines. A total of 132 haplotype windows were significantly associated with abdominal fat weight. These significantly associated haplotype windows were primarily located on chromosomes 2, 4, 8, 10, and 26. Seven candidate genes, including SHH, LMBR1, FGF7, IL16, PLIN1, IGF1R, and SLC16A1, were located within these associated regions. These genes may play important roles in the control of abdominal fat content. Two regions on chromosomes 3 and 10 were significantly associated with testis weight. These 2 regions were previously detected by the single SNP GWAS using this same resource population. TCF21 on chromosome 3 was identified as a potentially important candidate gene for testis growth and development based on gene expression analysis and the reported function of this gene. TCF12, which was previously detected in our SNP by SNP interaction analysis, was located in a region on chromosome 10 that was significantly associated with testis weight. Six candidate genes, including TNFRSF1B, PLOD1, NPPC, MTHFR, EPHB2, and SLC35A3, on chromosome 21 may play important roles in bone development based on the known function of these genes. In addition, several regions were significantly associated with other carcass and growth traits, but no candidate genes were identified. The results of the present study may be helpful in understanding the genetic mechanisms of carcass and growth traits in chickens.

Growing evidence indicates that gut microbiota factors cannot be viewed as independent in the occurrence of obesity. Because the gut microbiome is highly dimensional and complex, studies on interactions between gut microbiome and host in obesity are still rare. To explore the relationship of gut microbiome–host interactions with obesity, we performed multi-omics associations of gut metagenome, intestinal transcriptome, and host obesity phenotypes in divergently selected obese–lean broiler lines. Metagenomic shotgun sequencing generated a total of 450 gigabases of clean data from 80 intestinal segment contents of 20 broilers (10 of each line). The microbiome comparison showed that microbial diversity and composition in the duodenum, jejunum, ileum, and ceca were altered variously between the lean- and fat-line broilers. We identified two jejunal microbes (Escherichia coli and Candidatus Acetothermia bacterium) and four cecal microbes (Alistipes sp. CHKCI003, Ruminococcaceae bacterium CPB6, Clostridiales bacterium, and Anaeromassilibacillus sp. An200), which were significantly different between the two lines (FDR < 0.05). When comparing functional metagenome, the fat-line broilers had an intensive microbial metabolism in the duodenum and jejunum but degenerative microbial activities in the ileum and ceca. mRNA-sequencing identified a total of 1,667 differentially expressed genes (DEG) in the four intestinal compartments between the two lines (| log2FC| > 1.5 and FDR < 0.05). Multi-omics associations showed that the 14 microbial species with abundances that were significantly related with abdominal fat relevant traits (AFRT) also have significant correlations with 155 AFRT-correlated DEG (p < 0.05). These DEG were mainly involved in lipid metabolism, immune system, transport and catabolism, and cell growth-related pathways. The present study constructed a gut microbial gene catalog of the obese–lean broiler lines. Intestinal transcriptome and metagenome comparison between the two lines identified candidate DEG and differential microbes for obesity, respectively. Multi-omics associations suggest that abdominal fat deposition may be influenced by the interactions of specific gut microbiota abundance and the expression of host genes in the intestinal compartments in which the microbes reside. Our study explored the interactions between gut microbiome and host intestinal gene expression in lean and obese broilers, which may expand knowledge on the relationships between obesity and gut microbiome.

Gut microbiota and their metabolites play important roles in animal growth by influencing the host’s intake, storage, absorption, and utilization of nutrients. In addition to environmental factors, mainly diet, chicken breed and growth stage also affect changes in the gut microbiota. However, little research has been conducted on the development of gut microbiota and its metabolites in local chickens. In this study, the cecal microbiota and metabolites in different developmental stages of Hainan Wenchang chickens (a native breed of Bantam) were investigated using 16S rRNA sequencing and untargeted metabolomics. With aging, the structure of gut microbiota tended to be more stable. The relative proportions of dominant bacteria phyla Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, and Proteobacteria showed stage changes with the development. With aging, gut microbiota and their metabolites may have structural and functional changes in response to nutrient metabolism and immune requirements in different physiological states. Several microbial and metabolic biomarkers with statistical differences were detected in different development stages. The bacteria that form networks with their significant related metabolites were different in various growth stages, including uncultured_bacterium_f_Ruminococcaceae, Ruminococcaceae_UCG-014, Faecalibacterium, uncultured_bacterium_o_Bacteroidales, and uncultured_bacterium_f_Lachnospiraceae. Partially differential bacteria were significantly correlated with short-chain fatty acids such as butyric acid. These findings may provide new insights into the physiological and molecular mechanisms of developmental changes of local chicken breeds, as well as resources for microbial and metabolic biomarker identification to improve growth efficiency.

A method for control of three-phase unbalanced load based on variable frequency power was proposed in this paper. The general idea was introduced firstly, and then the implementation of the scheme and the design method of variable frequency power supply and the realization scheme of the master control center at the side of low-voltage distribution network was described in details. When three-phase unbalance occurs in the power grid, the general control center sends phase-changing instructions, and the inverter power supply receives instructions to perform phase-changing, and the normal work of the load is not affected in the phase-changing process, which can effectively solve the problem of three-phase unbalance in the power grid. By setting up the basic model of low-voltage side commutation with variable frequency power as the core, the rationality of the commutation process is simulated and analyzed by MATLAB, and finally the feasibility of three-phase unbalanced control scheme with frequency conversion power as the core is verified by experiments.

As one of the core components of the RF power system, the RF power source has a fixed frequency and low conversion efficiency, which has become a bottleneck restricting the development of the RF power system. Aiming at this problem, a design scheme for freely switching the RF power source between dual frequency operation modes is proposed. Direct Digital Synthesizer is used as the RF signal source. The MOSFTE producted by IXYS Company of Germany is used to achieve the amplification of small signals, which improves conversion efficiency and the stability of the output frequency. The method of parallel inductors reduces power loss during switching time. Switching the frequency selection network with a digital-controlled switch achieves adaptation of the system at dual frequencies. At the same time, Multisim simulation is carried out on the proposed scheme and theory. After actual testing, the RF power source can achieve dual frequency selection output of 13.56 MHz and 27.12 MHz at 300 W, and the conversion efficiency can reach 90.1%.

Reverse transcription quantitative real-time PCR is the most commonly used method to detect gene expression levels. In experiments, it is often necessary to correct and standardize the expression level of target genes with reference genes. Therefore, it is very important to select stable reference genes to obtain accurate quantitative results. Although application examples of reference genes in mammals have been reported, no studies have investigated the use of reference genes in studying the growth and development of adipose tissue and the proliferation and differentiation of preadipocytes in chickens. In this study, GeNorm, a reference gene stability statistical algorithm, was used to analyze the expression stability of 14 candidate reference genes in the abdominal adipose tissue of broilers at 1, 4, and 7 weeks of age, the proliferation and differentiation of primary preadipocytes, as well as directly isolated preadipocytes and mature adipocytes. The results showed that the expression of the TATA box binding protein (TBP) and hydroxymethylbilane synthase (HMBS) genes was most stable during the growth and development of abdominal adipose tissue of broilers, the expression of the peptidylprolyl isomerase A (PPIA) and HMBS genes was most stable during the proliferation of primary preadipocytes, the expression of the TBP and RPL13 genes was most stable during the differentiation of primary preadipocytes, and the expression of the TBP and HMBS genes was most stable in directly isolated preadipocytes and mature adipocytes. These results provide reference bases for accurately detecting the mRNA expression of functional genes in adipose tissue and adipocytes of chickens.

Ventilation velocity conditions may affect the smoke diffusion and evacuation environment in a tunnel fire, which should be fully considered in evacuation spacing designs of undersea tunnels. This study focuses on reasonable evacuation spacing under various possible velocity conditions of an undersea tunnel, providing a design method reference for calculating safe evacuation spacing. Fire Dynamic Simulator and Pathfinder software were used for numerical simulations of a 50 MW fire and evacuation process in a full-scale undersea tunnel with traffic congestion. The simulation cases contained velocity modes from zero to satisfying the critical velocity and evacuation spacings from 30 m to 80 m. The calculated distributions of the available safe escape time indicated that a low ventilation velocity, such as 1.0 m/s, is beneficial to the downstream evacuation, but turning off mechanical ventilation increased risk near the fire source. The required safe escape time is shortened with a reduction in slide spacings, but the shortened rate slowed down after spacing was less than 60 m. In addition, the slow evacuating areas from 100 m to 300 m from the fire source independent of spacing are identified. Ultimately, the reasonable evacuation spacings of 60 m, 50 m, and 30 m, corresponding to three possible ventilation velocity modes of low, medium, and high, are proposed through the comparisons of the distributions of available safe escape time and required safe escape time.

Nowadays, a large number of people frequently use social networks. Social networks have become important platforms for people to publish and obtain information. However, social networks have also become the main venue for hackers to initiate online fraud. Phishing is a common way used by hackers to launch online fraud on social networks. This paper proposes a method for detecting phishing short URL based on the link jumping. The method uses a hierarchical hidden Markov model with two-layer structure to describe the link jumping process after user clicking on short URL, so as to identify phishing short URL on social networks. The proposed method includes a training phase and an identification phase. In the identification phase, the average log-likelihood probability of the observation sequence is calculated. An experiment based on real datasets of Weibo is conducted to evaluate this method. The experiment results validate the effectiveness of this method.

Abstract Background In avian species, liver is the main site of de novo lipogenesis, and hepatic lipid metabolism relates closely to adipose fat deposition. Using our fat and lean chicken lines of striking differences in abdominal fat content, post-hatch lipid metabolism in both liver and adipose tissues has been studied extensively. However, whether molecular discrepancy for hepatic lipid metabolism exists in chicken embryos remains obscure. Results We performed transcriptome and proteome profiling on chicken livers at five embryonic stages (E7, E12, E14, E17 and E21) between the fat and lean chicken lines. At each stage, 521, 141, 882, 979 and 169 differentially expressed genes were found by the digital gene expression, respectively, which were significantly enriched in the metabolic, PPAR signaling and fatty acid metabolism pathways. Quantitative proteomics analysis found 20 differentially expressed proteins related to lipid metabolism, PPAR signaling, fat digestion and absorption, and oxidative phosphorylation pathways. Combined analysis showed that genes and proteins related to lipid transport (intestinal fatty acid-binding protein, nucleoside diphosphate kinase, and apolipoprotein A-I), lipid clearance (heat shock protein beta-1) and energy metabolism (NADH dehydrogenase [ubiquinone] 1 beta subcomplex subunit 10 and succinate dehydrogenase flavoprotein subunit) were significantly differentially expressed between the two lines. Conclusions For hepatic lipid metabolism at embryonic stages, molecular differences related to lipid transport, lipid clearance and energy metabolism exist between the fat and lean chicken lines, which might contribute to the striking differences of abdominal fat deposition at post-hatch stages.

Abstract Background In addition to additive genetic effects, epistatic interactions can play key roles in the control of phenotypic variation of traits of interest. In the current study, 475 male birds from lean and fat chicken lines were utilized as a resource population to detect significant epistatic effects associated with growth and carcass traits. Results A total of 421 significant epistatic effects were associated with testis weight (TeW), from which 11 sub-networks (Sub-network1 to Sub-network11) were constructed. In Sub-network1, which was the biggest network, there was an interaction between GGA21 and GGAZ. Three genes on GGA21 (SDHB, PARK7 and VAMP3) and nine genes (AGTPBP1, CAMK4, CDC14B, FANCC, FBP1, GNAQ, PTCH1, ROR2 and STARD4) on GGAZ that might be potentially important candidate genes for testis growth and development were detected based on the annotated gene function. In Sub-network2, there was a SNP on GGA19 that interacted with 8 SNPs located on GGA10. The SNP (Gga_rs15834332) on GGA19 was located between C-C motif chemokine ligand 5 (CCL5) and MIR142. There were 32 Refgenes on GGA10, including TCF12 which is predicted to be a target gene of miR-142-5p. We hypothesize that miR-142-5p and TCF12 may interact with one another to regulate testis growth and development. Two genes (CDH12 and WNT8A) in the same cadherin signaling pathway were implicated as potentially important genes in the control of metatarsus circumference (MeC). There were no significant epistatic effects identified for the other carcass and growth traits, e.g. heart weight (HW), liver weight (LW), spleen weight (SW), muscular and glandular stomach weight (MGSW), carcass weight (CW), body weight (BW1, BW3, BW5, BW7), chest width (ChWi), metatarsus length (MeL). Conclusions The results of the current study are helpful to better understand the genetic basis of carcass and growth traits, especially for testis growth and development in broilers.

Objective This study was performed to investigate the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in pregnant women in Guizhou, China and its correlation with adverse infant and maternal outcomes during the perinatal period. Methods In total, 220 pregnant women who received perinatal care and delivered in the Affiliated Hospital of Guizhou Medical University from November 2014 to April 2015 were enrolled. Each woman’s serum vitamin D concentration was tested during early pregnancy, and its correlation with adverse infant and maternal outcomes in the perinatal period was analyzed. Results The mean serum vitamin D concentration was 29.5 ± 5.8 nmol/L. More than 90% of pregnant women had vitamin D insufficiency. Additionally, 38.4% of women with vitamin D deficiency and 22.2% with vitamin D inadequacy developed adverse perinatal outcomes. The vitamin D level was negatively correlated with adverse pregnancy outcomes. Conclusion Vitamin D deficiency is highly prevalent among pregnant women in Guizhou, China. The incidence of adverse perinatal outcomes was far higher in association with vitamin D deficiency than sufficiency. A negative correlation was found between the vitamin D level and the incidence of adverse perinatal outcomes in pregnant women. Therefore, targeted screening and proper supplementation are needed during early pregnancy.