Abstract. Tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase 1 (TIMP1) is associated with
animal reproductive processes, such as follicular growth, ovulation,
luteinization, and embryo development in mammals. The purposes of this study
were to explore the expression and localization of TIMP1 in the ovarian
tissues and determine the effect of TIMP1 on the function of granulosa cells
and the association of TIMP1 with lambing-related genes of the goats.
Immunohistochemical analysis showed that TIMP1 protein was strongly
expressed by granulosa cells. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) results showed that TIMP1 overexpression
promoted the secretion of estradiol of granulosa cells after 12, 24, and
48 h of transfection. Moreover, in vitro experiments indicated that TIMP1
had the ability to promote the cell proliferation and elevate the
transcriptional levels of four genes associated with goat prolificacy,
including BMPR-1B, BMP15, GDF9, and FSHB, in granulosa cells. In conclusion,
TIMP1 could be an important molecule in regulating reproductive performance
of the goats by affecting estrogen secretion and cell proliferation, as well as the
expression of lambing-related genes of granulosa cells in the goats.
Gut microbiota is thought to play a crucial role in nutrient digestion for pigs, especially in processing indigestible polysaccharides in the diets to produce short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). However, the link between microbiota community structure and phenotypic performances are poorly understood. In the present study, the fecal samples of 105 Jinhua pigs at 105 days of age were clustered into three enterotypes (ETs, ET1, ET2, and ET3) that are subpopulations of distinct bacterial community composition by using 16S rRNA high throughput sequencing. The α-diversity indices (the OTU number and Shannon index) were significantly different among the ETs (p < 0.001). At the genus level, the ET1 group was over-represented by Lactobacillus (17.49%) and Clostridium sensu stricto 1 (11.78%), the ET2 group was over-represented by Clostridium sensu stricto 1 (17.49%) and Bifidobacterium (11.78%), and the ET3 group was over-represented by Bacteroides (18.17%). Significant differences in the fecal contents of butyrate were observed among ETs, with the highest level detected in ET3 and the lowest in ET2 (p < 0.05). Consistently, more copies of the terminal genes for butyrate synthesis, butyrate kinase (Buk) and butyryl coenzyme A (CoA): acetate CoA transferase (But) were detected by qPCR in the fecal samples of the ET3 group as compared to other two groups (p < 0.05). In addition, of the two genes, But was demonstrated to be more relevant to the butyrate content (R = 0.7464) than Buk (R = 0.4905) by correlation analysis. In addition, based on the taxonomic analysis, we found that Faecalibacterium was the most relevant butyrate-producing genera with fecal butyrate contents in Jinhua pigs, followed by Butyricicoccus, Eubacterium, Butyricimonas, Blautia, and Anaerostipes, all of which showed significantly higher richness in ET3 than as compared to ET1 and ET2 (p < 0.05). Collectively, this work presents a first overview of the enterotypes clustering in Jinhua pigs and will help to unravel the functional implications of ETs for the pig’s phenotypic performance and nutrient metabolism.
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