Microbial communities of human gut directly influence health and bear adaptive potential to different geography environment and lifestyles. However, knowledge about the influences of altitude and geography on the gut microbiota of Tibetans is currently limited. In this study, fecal microbiota from 208 Tibetans across six different locations were analyzed by MiSeq sequencing; these locations included Gannan, Gangcha, Tianzhu, Hongyuan, Lhasa and Nagqu, with altitudes above sea level ranging from 2800 m to 4500 m across the Tibetan plateau. Significant differences were observed in microbial diversity and richness in different locations. At the phylum level, gut populations of Tibetans comprised Bacteroidetes (60.00%), Firmicutes (29.04%), Proteobacteria (5.40%), and Actinobacteria (3.85%) and were marked by a low ratio (0.48) of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes. Analysis based on operational taxonomic unit level revealed that core microbiotas included Prevotella, Faecalibacterium, and Blautia, whereas Prevotella predominated all locations, except Gangcha. Four community state types were detected in all samples, and they mainly belong to Prevotella, Bacteroides, and Ruminococcaceae. Principal component analysis and related correspondence analysis results revealed that bacterial profiles in Tibetan guts varied significantly with increasing altitude, BMI, and age, and facultative anaerobes were rich in Tibetan guts. Gut microbiota may play important roles in regulating high-altitude and geographical adaptations.
Roasted fish fillet (Fig.1) represents a popular snack food in China and a preliminary analysis of the label found only fish common names, without any reference to a particular species (Table 1). Since there is still not a harmonization around the definition of these common names in China, retailers are thus induced to mislabel roasted fish fillet products for lucrative profits. This study used direct sequencing method based on fragments of 16S rRNA gene and subsequent BLAST analysis to investigate the species composition of roasted fish fillet products circulated on Chinese market. An exclusive criterion was defined to determine the labeling accuracy and only the identified species beyond the expected family was considered as mislabeling. Results highlighted an inadequate enforcement of relative rules and a high mislabeling rate of 75.9%. A worse fact was the identification of multiple fish species not only from several packages under the same common name, but also from several specimens belonging to a single package. In order to protect the consumers from economic loss and even health risk, we recommended the amendments to the existing legislations and the compilation of list of acceptable market names for fish species in China.
The present study was carried out to examine the effect of valproic acid (VPA), an important histone deacetylase inhibitor, on the in vitro development and expression of the epigenetic marker histone H3 lysine 9 (H3K9ac) in bovine somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) embryos. We found that treatment with 4 mM VPA for 24 h could significantly improve the development of bovine SCNT embryos. Compared with the no-treatment group, the cleavage rate was higher (69.79 -0.99% vs. 65.11 -1.02%, p < 0.05), as was the blastocyst rate (39.99 -1.29% vs. 34.87 -1.74%, p < 0.05). Moreover, the rate of apoptosis (1.91 -0.48% vs. 5.67 -0.40%, p < 0.05) in blastocysts was greatly reduced after VPA treatment. Valproic acid treatment also increased the immunofluorescent signal for H3K9ac in SCNT embryos in a pattern similar to that of in vitro fertilized (IVF) embryos. In conclusion, we demonstrated that VPA can significantly improve the in vitro developmental competence and enhance the nuclear reprogramming of bovine SCNT embryos.
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