The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of Paris saponin I (PS I) on human gastric carcinoma cell growth and apoptosis and to explore the potential mechanisms. The proliferation of SGC7901 cells was monitored by the MTT cell viability assay, while the nuclear morphology of apoptotic cells was assessed by Hoechst 33258 staining. Flow cytometry was performed to analyze the cell cycle progression of propidium iodide (PI)-stained SGC7901 cells and the apoptotic rate of annexin V/PI-stained cells. Western blotting was used to examine the expression of several cell cycle proteins, including cyclin B1 and Cdk1, and the apoptosis-regulated proteins Bcl-2, Bax, cytochrome c, procaspase-9, and procaspase-3. The MTT assay demonstrated that PS I could induce significant dose- and time-dependent inhibition of SGC7901 cell proliferation. Marked morphological changes, including condensation of chromatin, nuclear fragmentation and apoptotic bodies were clearly shown on Hoechst 33258 staining. PSI treatment also resulted in the disruption of the cell cycle at G₂/M and the induction of apoptosis. Following PSI treatment, the cell cycle-related proteins cyclin B1 and Cdk1 were down-regulated. Expression of the pro-apoptotic protein Bax was increased, while anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2 decreased. PSI treatment resulted in elevated cytoplasmic cytochrome c and activation of the apoptotic proteases caspase-9 and caspase-3. These data indicate that PS acts as an inhibitor of proli I feration in SGC7901 cells by inducing cell cycle arrest and mitochondria-dependent apoptosis. PSI is a potential therapeutic agent against human gastric carcinoma.

Disease is a global problem for animal farming industries causing tremendous economic losses (>USD 220 billion over the last decade) and serious animal welfare issues. The limitations and deficiencies of current non-selection disease control methods (e.g., vaccination, treatment, eradication strategy, genome editing, and probiotics) make it difficult to effectively, economically, and permanently eliminate the adverse influences of disease in the farm animals. These limitations and deficiencies drive animal breeders to be more concerned and committed to dealing with health problems in farm animals by selecting animals with favorable health traits. Both genetic selection and genomic selection contribute to improving the health of farm animals by selecting certain health traits (e.g., disease tolerance, disease resistance, and immune response), although both of them face some challenges. The objective of this review was to comprehensively review the potential of selecting health traits in coping with issues caused by diseases in farm animals. Within this review, we highlighted that selecting health traits can be applied as a method of disease control to help animal agriculture industries to cope with the adverse influences caused by diseases in farm animals. Certainly, the genetic/genomic selection solution cannot solve all the disease problems in farm animals. Therefore, management, vaccination, culling, medical treatment, and other measures must accompany selection solution to reduce the adverse impact of farm animal diseases on profitability and animal welfare.

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A global population of already more than seven billion people has led to an increased demand for food and water, and especially the demand for meat. Moreover, the cost of feed used in animal production has also increased dramatically, which requires animal breeders to find alternatives to reduce feed consumption. Understanding the biology underlying feed efficiency (FE) allows for a better selection of feed-efficient animals. Non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), especially micro RNAs (miRNAs) and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), play important roles in the regulation of bio-logical processes and disease development. The functions of ncRNAs in the biology of FE have emerged as they participate in the regulation of many genes and pathways related to the major FE indicators, such as residual feed intake and feed conversion ratio. This review provides the state of the art studies related to the ncRNAs associated with FE in livestock species. The contribution of ncRNAs to FE in the liver, muscle, and adipose tissues were summarized. The research gap of the function of ncRNAs in key processes for improved FE, such as the nutrition, heat stress, and gut–brain axis, was examined. Finally, the potential uses of ncRNAs for the improvement of FE were discussed.

Tumor cells often exhibit the Warburg effect, wherein, they preferentially undergo glycolysis over oxidative phosphorylation for energy production. Monocarboxylate transporter 1 (MCT1) and 4 (MCT4) are critical symporters mediating lactate e ux and preventing intracellular acidi cation during tumor growth. Numerous studies have focused on inhibiting MCT1 or MCT4 in various cancers. However, its role in T-cell lymphoma (TCL) is not yet investigated owing to the low incidence of TCL. This study was designed to investigate the expression of MCT1/MCT4 in patients with TCL and determine their prognostic value in this cancer. We performed immunohistochemistry to evaluate the expression level of MCT1/MCT4 in 38 TCL tissue samples and then compared their expression among different TCL subgroups, which were formed based on different clinical characteristics. Survival analysis was performed to evaluate the relationship between MCT1/MCT4 expression and both overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). Our results revealed that MCT1 and MCT4 expression was signi cantly increased in TCL tissues compared to the control group. In addition, increased MCT1 expression associated with the female sex, advanced disease stage, increased serum LDH, Ki-67 at ≥50%, and intermediate or high-risk groups as categorized by the International Prognostic Index (IPI) score. We also found that increased MCT1 expression may be associated with reduced OS and PFS. In conclusion, MCT1 and MCT4 are overexpressed in patients with TCL, and may predict poor prognosis. MCT1 inhibition might be a novel treatment strategy for TCL, and further preclinical trials are required.

Over the past decade, M-type cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) line W931A and a variety of restorer lines have been exploited for the release of hybrid seeds in soybean (Glycine max). However, the identities of restorer genes in the nuclei of soybean restorer lines are still unclear. In this study, we analysed the inheritance pattern of restorer locus Rf-m from restorer line WR016 and constructed a high-resolution map of this locus. Results showed that Rf-m in WR016 is a monogenic dominant gene located within a 162.4-kb region on chromosome 16, which is flanked on each side by new developed simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers GmSSR1602 and GmSSR1610 at a distance of 0.11 and 0.25 cM, respectively. Nineteen open reading frames (ORFs) were predicted in this region. Of these, seven genes arranged in tandem on chromosome 16 encode pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR) proteins, which is similar to other reported restorer loci in plants. These results lay a solid foundation for map-based cloning of the Rf-m gene and will be helpful for marker-assisted selection of elite CMS restorer lines.Key words: soybean line W931A -simple sequence repeat marker -restorer line WR016 -mapping Cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) is a maternally inherited trait that results in the inability of plants to produce fertile pollen (Hanson and Bentolila 2004). CMS is often associated with variations in the mitochondrial genome (Mackenzie et al. 1994, Schnable and Wise 1998, St€ adler and Delph 2002. In previous studies, male sterility can be restored by introducing some dominant nuclear genes, which are referred to as Rf (restorer of fertility) genes (Budar and Pelletier 2001, Liu et al. 2001). The CMS/Rf system is an ideal model for studying genetic interactions between the nuclear and mitochondrial genomes of plants. Additionally, the CMS/Rf system is also a practical tool for hybrid seed production (Liu et al. 2012). In China, several soybean hybrids developed using the CMS/Rf system have been released. The yields of these hybrids are 15-20% higher than those of the corresponding inbred parental varieties (Zhao et al. 2004, Zhang et al. 2007a, Peng et al. 2008.Soybean CMS lines in China are mainly gametophytic male sterile. These lines are classified into five main types based on the origin of the sterile cytoplasm: M, RN, ZD, XX and N8855 (Zhang et al. 1999, Ding et al. 2002, Sun et al. 2003. Among them, M-type CMS lines were developed using a local earlymaturing cultivar, 'Zhongyou89B', as the cytoplasm donor (Zhang et al. 1999(Zhang et al. , 2007b. Zhang et al. (1999) reported that W931A, which belongs to the class of M-type, produces~98.7% aborted pollen and exhibits a number of beneficial traits for breeding, such as stable sterility, strong combining ability and wide adaptability. The first summer soybean hybrid in the early maturity group to be released was developed using this line, with an average yield increase of 19.14% (Zhang et al. 2007a). One challenge encountered when using CMS for breeding is identifying a good restorer lin...

Aleutian disease (AD), caused by the Aleutian mink disease virus (AMDV), is a major health concern that results in global economic losses to the mink industry. The unsatisfactory outcome of the culling strategy, immunoprophylaxis, and medical treatment in controlling AD have urged mink farmers to select AD resilient mink based on several detection tests, including enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), counterimmunoelectrophoresis (CIEP), and iodine agglutination test (IAT). However, the genetic analysis of these AD tests and their correlations with pelt quality, reproductive performance, packed-cell volume (PCV), and harvest length (HL) have not been investigated. In this study, data on 5,824 mink were used to estimate the genetic and phenotypic parameters of four AD tests, including two systems of ELISA, CIEP, and IAT, and their genetic and phenotypic correlations with two pelt quality, five female reproductive performance, PCV, and HL traits. Significances (P<0.05) of fixed effects (sex, year, dam age, and color type), covariates (age at harvest and blood sampling ), and random effects (additive genetic, permanent environmental, and maternal effects) were determined under univariate models using ASReml 4.1 software. The genetic and phenotypic parameters for all traits were estimated under bivariate models using ASReml 4.1 software. Estimated heritabilities (±SE) were 0.39±0.06, 0.61±0.07, 0.11±0.07, and 0.26±0.05 for AMDV antigen-based ELISA (ELISA-G), AMDV capsid protein-based ELISA, CIEP, and IAT, respectively. The ELISA-G also showed a moderate repeatability (0.58±0.04) and had significant negative genetic correlations (±SE) with reproductive performance traits (from -0.41±0.16 to -0.49±0.12), PCV (-0.53±0.09), and HL (-0.45±0.16). These results indicated that ELISA-G had the potential to be applied as an indicator trait for genetic selection of AD resilient mink in AD endemic ranches, and therefore help mink farmers to reduce the adverse effects caused by AD.

Background Copy number variations (CNVs) represent a major source of genetic diversity and contribute to the phenotypic variation of economically important traits in livestock species. In this study, we report the first genome-wide CNV analysis of American mink using whole-genome sequence data from 100 individuals. The analyses were performed by three complementary software programs including CNVpytor, DELLY and Manta. Results A total of 164,733 CNVs (144,517 deletions and 20,216 duplications) were identified representing 5378 CNV regions (CNVR) after merging overlapping CNVs, covering 47.3 Mb (1.9%) of the mink autosomal genome. Gene Ontology and KEGG pathway enrichment analyses of 1391 genes that overlapped CNVR revealed potential role of CNVs in a wide range of biological, molecular and cellular functions, e.g., pathways related to growth (regulation of actin cytoskeleton, and cAMP signaling pathways), behavior (axon guidance, circadian entrainment, and glutamatergic synapse), lipid metabolism (phospholipid binding, sphingolipid metabolism and regulation of lipolysis in adipocytes), and immune response (Wnt signaling, Fc receptor signaling, and GTPase regulator activity pathways). Furthermore, several CNVR-harbored genes associated with fur characteristics and development (MYO5A, RAB27B, FGF12, SLC7A11, EXOC2), and immune system processes (SWAP70, FYN, ORAI1, TRPM2, and FOXO3). Conclusions This study presents the first genome-wide CNV map of American mink. We identified 5378 CNVR in the mink genome and investigated genes that overlapped with CNVR. The results suggest potential links with mink behaviour as well as their possible impact on fur quality and immune response. Overall, the results provide new resources for mink genome analysis, serving as a guideline for future investigations in which genomic structural variations are present.