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Diet plays a crucial role in shaping the gut microbiota and overall health of animals. Traditionally, silkworms are fed fresh mulberry leaves, and artificial diets do not support good health. The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between the dietary transition from artificial diets to mulberry leaves and the effects on the gut microbiota and physiological changes in silkworms as a model organism. With the transition from artificial diets to mulberry leaves, the diversity of the silkworm gut microbiota increased, and the proportion of Enterococcus and Weissella, the dominant gut bacterial species in silkworms reared on artificial diets, decreased, whereas the abundance of Achromobacter and Rhodococcus increased. Dietary transition at different times, including the third or fifth instar larval stages, resulted in significant differences in the growth and development, immune resistance, and silk production capacity of silkworms. These changes might have been associated with the rapid adaptation of the intestinal microbiota of silkworms to dietary transition. This study preliminarily established a dietary transition–gut microbial model in silkworms based on the conversion from artificial diets to mulberry leaves, thus providing an important reference for future studies on the mechanisms through which habitual dietary changes affect host physiology through the gut microbiome.

The transgenesis of silkworms is an important way to innovate genetic resources and silk function. However, the silk-gland (SG) of transgenic silkworms, which is the most concerned target tissue of sericulture, often suffers from low vitality, stunting and other problems, and the reasons are still unknown. This study trans engineered recombinant Ser3, a middle silk gland (MSG) specific expression gene, in the posterior silk gland (PSG) of the silkworm, and studied hemolymph immune melanization response changes in mutant pure line SER (Ser3+/+). The results showed that although the mutant had normal vitality, the melanin content and phenoloxidase (PO) activity in hemolymph related to humoral immunity were significantly reduced, and caused significantly slower blood melanization and weaker sterilization ability. The mechanism investigation showed that the mRNA levels and enzymatic activities of phenylalanine hydroxylase (PAH), tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) and dopamine decarboxylase (DDC) in the melanin synthesis pathway in mutant hemolymph, as well as the transcription levels of the PPAE, SP21 and serpins genes in the serine protease cascade were significantly affected. Moreover, the total antioxidant capacity, superoxide anion inhibition capacity and catalase (CAT) level related to the redox metabolic capacity of hemolymph were significantly increased, while the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione reductase (GR), as well as the levels of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and glutathione (GSH), were significantly decreased. In conclusion, the anabolism of melanin in the hemolymph of PSG transgenic silkworm SER was inhibited, while the basic response level of oxidative stress was increased, and the hemolymph immune melanization response was decreased. The results will significantly improve the safe assessment and development of genetically modified organisms.

The female Bombyx mori accumulates a large amount of egg proteins, mainly Vg and 30K, during egg formation to provide nutrition for embryo development. The synthesis and transport of Vg have been extensively studied, particularly the regulation of Vg transcription induced by 20E; however, the mechanism of 30K protein synthesis is poorly studied. As a model organism of the order Lepidoptera, B. mori has high reproduction potential. In the present study, we found that the FHL2 homologous gene (BmFhl2) in B. mori is involved in inhibiting female egg formation by influencing the synthesis of 30K protein. Interference of BmFhl2 expression in silkworm females increased 30K protein synthesis, accelerated ovarian development, and significantly increased the number of eggs produced and laid; however, the 20E pathway was inhibited. The transcription levels of Vg and 30Kc19 were significantly downregulated following BmFhl2 overexpression in the silkworm ovarian cell line BmN. The Co-IP assay showed that the potential binding protein of BmFHL2 included three types of 30K proteins (30Kc12, 30Kc19, and 30Kc21). These results indicate that BmFHL2 participates in egg formation by affecting 30K protein in female B. mori.

Temperature is an important environmental factor affecting the growth and development of silkworm (Bombyx mori). To analyze the effect of intestinal microbes on silkworm in response to a high-temperature environment, this study used a combination of high throughput sequencing and biochemical assays to detect silkworm intestinal microbes treated with high temperature for 72 h. The results show that high temperature affects the intestinal microbes of silkworm and that there are sex differences, specifically, females were more sensitive. The changes in the metabolism and transport ability of silkworm intestinal tissues under high temperature are related to the intestinal microbes. High temperatures may affect the intestinal microbes of silkworms, regulating the activity of related digestive enzymes and substance transport in the intestine, thereby affecting the silkworm’s digestion and absorption of nutrients, and ultimately affecting growth and development.

The Lucaogou Formation in Jimuaser Sag of Junggar Basin, China is a typical tight oil reservoir with upper and lower sweet spots. However, the pore structure of this formation has not been studied thoroughly due to limited core analysis data. In this paper, the pore structures of the Lucaogou Formation were characterized, and a new method applicable to oil-wet rocks was verified and used to consecutively predict pore structures by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) logs. To do so, a set of experiments including X-ray diffraction (XRD), mercury intrusion capillary pressure (MICP), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and NMR measurements were conducted. First, SEM images showed that pore types are mainly intragranular dissolution, intergranular dissolution, micro fractures and clay pores. Then, capillary pressure curves were divided into three types (I, II and III). The pores associated with type I and III are mainly dissolution and clay pores, respectively. Next, the new method was verified by “as received” and water-saturated condition T2 distributions of two samples. Finally, consecutive prediction in fourteen wells demonstrated that the pores of this formation are dominated by nano-scale pores and the pore structure of the lower sweet spot reservoir is more complicated than that in upper sweet spot reservoir.

Host-pathogen interactions are complex processes and it is a central challenge to reveal these interactions. Fungal infection of silkworm, Bombyx mori, may induce a variety of responsive reaction. However, little is known about the molecular mechanism of silkworm immune response against the fungal infection. To obtain an overview of the interaction between silkworm and an entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana, Digital Gene Expression profiling, a tag based high-throughput transcriptome sequencing method, was employed to screen and identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs, FDR ≤ 0.001, ∣log2ratio∣ ≥ 1) of silkworm larvae during early response against B. bassiana infection. Total 1430 DEGs including 960 up-regulated and 470 down-regulated ones were identified, of which 627 DEGs can be classified into GO categories by Gene Ontology (GO) analysis. KEGG pathways analysis of these DEGs suggested that many biological processes, such as defense and response, signal transduction, phagocytosis, regulation of gene expression, RNA splicing, biosynthesis and metabolism, protein transport etc. were involved in the interaction between the silkworm and B. bassiana. A number of differentially expressed fungal genes were also identified by mapping the sequencing tags to B. bassiana genome. These results provided new insights to the molecular mechanism of silkworm immune response to B. bassiana infection.

This paper addresses the cooperative output tracking control problem for a class of leader-following linear heterogeneous networked multi-agent systems subject to random network delays and packet dropouts in the feedback and forward channels of each agent. A state observer is established at the plant side of each agent, and an event-triggering transmission mechanism is introduced to decide which state estimate is transmitted to the corresponding controller so as to save the network resources of the feedback channel. To further compensate for the negative effects of those random communication constraints and the event trigger, a cooperative predictive control scheme with proportional and integral actions is proposed. Then, a necessary and sufficient condition is derived for the stability of the resulting closed-loop system. Finally, simulation results are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

The article focuses on a study which examined effects of gouty therapeutic drugs on lowering the content of uric acid and inhibiting activity of xanthine oxidase in silkworm model Bombyx mori L. of hyperuricemia and gout. The study described the activity of xanthine oxidase of silkworm treated with allopurinol. It showed that the effectiveness of oral administration of gouty therapeutic drugs to 5th instar silkworms is the same with that of humans.

For mass production of urease B subunit (UreB) and heat shock protein A subunit (HspA) of Helicobacter pylori with Bombyx mori nuclear polyhedrosis virus (BmNPV) baculovirus expression system (BES) and to determine whether they could be used as an oral vaccine against H. pylori, besides, to determine the time course of expressed recombinant protein and the optimum acquisition time directly through green fluorescence, HspA and enhanced green fluorescence protein (EGFP) genes were cloned into vector pFastBacDual to form donor vector pFastBacDual-(EGFP) (HspA), UreB gene was cloned into vector pFastBacDual to form donor vector pFastBacDual- UreB,then they were transformed into E. coli BmDH10Bac to obtain the recombinant Bacmid-(EGFP) (HspA) and Bacmid-UreB respectively. They were used to transfect BmN cells and generated the recombinant baculovirus BmNPV-(EGFP) (HspA) and BmNPV-UreB. Using these recombinant baculovirus BmNPV-(EGFP) (HspA) and BmNPV-UreB inoculated the silkworm pupae, a recombinant HspA and UreB protein were expressed in silkworm pupae, which were around 13 and 62 kDa in sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and western blot analysis. After oral immunization of mice, serum specific IgG antibodies against HspA and UreB in vaccine group were much higher than that in mock and native silkworm powder control groups. The results indicated that the expressed recombinant HspA and UreB in silkworm pupae would possess good immunogenicity. In addition, when EGFP and HspA proteins were expressed, a direct correlation between the increase in intensity of fluorescence and HspA concentration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to elucidate the therapeutic effects of a traditional Chinese medicine, Pai-Du-Yang-Shen (PDYS) Formula, in 5/6 nephrectomy-induced chronic renal failure (CRF). The CRF model was established via 5/6 nephrectomy (Nx) in rats. Then, PDYS (0.9 and 1.8 g/kg/day), or an equal amount of normal saline, was administrated to the rats in respective groups. Our results showed that PDYS treatment improved degeneration, fibrosis, and histopathological abnormalities of renal tissues in 5/6 Nx rats. Furthermore, the increase in serum creatinine (Scr), blood urea nitrogen (BUN), and total urinary protein (TUP) in 5/6 Nx rats was reduced by PDYS treatment. In addition, the levels of tumor necrosis factor (TNF), fibronectin (FN), and laminin (LN) that were induced in 5/6 Nx rats were also decreased by PDYS treatment. Finally, relative mRNA expression of α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA), FN, transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β), and TNF as well as protein levels of TGF-β, NF-κB p65, and phosphorylated NF-κB p65 (p-p65) in renal tissues correlated with the concentration of TNF. In conclusion, PDYS shows therapeutic effects against CRF as determined by a reduction in markers for inflammation and fibrosis.