Fat mass and obesity-associated protein (FTO) is a RNA demethylase, whether FTO regulates fat metabolism through its demethylation is unclear. The results of this study confirmed that N6-methyladenosine (m A) is associated with fat accumulation both in vivo and in vitro. The data showed that FTO down-regulated m A levels, decreased mitochondrial content, and increased triglyceride (TG) deposition. However, an FTO (R316A) mutant lacking demethylation activity could not regulate mitochondria and TG content, indicating that FTO affects mitochondrial content and fat metabolism by modulating m A levels in hepatocytes. In addition, the regulatory roles of cycloleucine (methylation inhibitor) and betaine (methyl donor) could regulate m A levels and fat deposition. This work clarified that the demethylation function of FTO plays an essential role in the fat metabolism of hepatocytes and links the epigenetic modification of RNA with fat deposition, thereby providing a new target (m A) for regulation of hepatic fat metabolism.

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EC effectively improved blood lipid profile and protected liver from accumulating excessive fat in hyperlipidemic rats. The results shed a light on the potential role of EC as a promising natural product in preventing hyperlipidemia and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

This study compared the milk protein, fat, lactose, total solids and amino acids (AA) profiles of Murrah buffalo, Nili-Ravi buffalo and crossbreed buffalo. Buffalo milk samples of Murrah (n ¼ 25), Nili-Ravi (n ¼ 20) and Triple-crossbred (n ¼ 23) were collected and milk protein, fat, lactose, total solids and 17 AA profiles were determined. Milk protein and total solids contents of Murrah buffalo were higher than those of Nili-Ravi buffalo (p < .05). The average milk protein, fat, lactose and total solids contents of all buffalo samples were 4.76, 7.31, 5.19 and 18.40 g/100 g of milk, respectively. The AA composition of all three kinds of milk samples was rich in glutamic acid (0.89-0.96 g/100 g of milk) and poor in cysteine (0.01-0.02 g/100 g of milk). Leucine, lysine, valine and isoleucine were the most prevalent essential amino acids; while glutamic acid, proline, aspartic acid and serine were the most prevalent non-essential amino acids in the three kinds of milk samples. Significant differences (p < .05) were observed for concentrations of Lys, Ile, Leu, Phe, Cys and His, while the other 11 amino acids had no significant differences (p > .05). Conclusively, the milk of Murrah buffalo, Nili-Ravi buffalo and crossbreed buffalo was all rich in glutamic acid while poor in cysteine contents. After crossbreeding, the milk production of Triplecrossbred buffalo was higher than the local Chinese buffalo and its milk composition was in between those of Murrah and Nili-Ravi.

NAC with a transmembrane (TM) motif1-like (NTL) transcription factors, containing three regions: the N-terminal NAC domain (ND), the middle regulation region (RR), and the C-terminal TM domain, belong to the tail-anchored proteins. Although these NTLs play numerous essential roles in plants, their subcellular distribution and the mechanism of translocation into the nucleus (NU) remain unclear. In this study, we found that most of the full-length NTLs were localized in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), with the exception of NTL11 and NTL5, which were restricted to the NU. Furthermore, we found that NTL11 contains a TM domain, whereas NTL5 does not. The ND of all of the NTLs was responsible for nuclear localization in plants. After truncation of the TM domain, NTL8_NR, NTL10_NR and NTL13_NR localized in the cytoplasm (CT) and NU, and other NTL_NRs were only localized in the NU, suggesting that the RR of NTL8, NTL10 and NTL13 contains some inhibitory region to mask the nuclear localization signal sequence in the ND domain and permit their diffusion between CT and NU. Furthermore, the N-terminus of NTL11 was translocated to the NU, but the C-terminus was degraded in Arabidopsis mesophyll protoplasts. The chimeric construct of NTL11_ND with NTL10_RR and TM domain (11ND-10RT) was localized exclusively in the ER, and not in the NU. However, 10ND-11RT was found mainly in the NU. Our results indicated that the TM domain is essential for NTL targeting the ER and the N-terminal fragment, including ND and RR, is translocated into the NU after activation through proteolytic cleavage events upon stimulation by internal and external environmental signals.