A wheat LLM-domain-containing B-GATA transcription factor positively regulates the host immune response to the important pathogen Rhizoctonia cerealis.

No abstract

To investigate the supplemental effects of Hermetia illucens larvae meal (HILM) on the production, egg quality, yolk fatty acid composition, egg amino acid content, oxidative status, and immune indexes of laying hens. A total of 432 Xuefeng black-bone chickens (45-week-old) were randomly assigned to 4 treatments with 6 replicates per treatment and 18 hens in each replicate. The laying hens were fed the basal diet supplemented with 0%, 1%, 3%, and 5% HILM (CON, HILM-1, HILM-3, and HILM-5, respectively) for 56 d. The experimental diets were isonitrogenous and isoenergetic. The highest egg weight and Haugh unit were obtained with 3% HILM supplementation, but the HILM-3 or HILM-5 supplementation have negative effect on the eggshell thickness, yolk index, and albumen height during the early stage of the experiment. The HILM supplementation linearly or quadratically (p < .05) increased the C14:0, C17:0, C18:2n6c, C20:2 contents of yolk, the Glu, Val, Met, Phe, and Leu contents of egg, the T-SOD and CAT activities, and the NDV-Ab and AIV-Ab levels of plasma. With increasing supplementation of HILM in the basal diet, FCR, the C16:0 and C16:1 contents of yolk, MDA content and IL-2 level of plasma decreased both linearly or quadratically (p < .05). In conclusion, Hermetia illucens larvae meal can be a suitable alternative protein source for Xuefeng black-bone chicken. Dietary supplementation of 3% HILM in basal diets may be a feasible means of effectively increasing the production performance of laying hens, and partially enhanced hens' antioxidant capability and immune function. HIGHLIGHTS Supplementation of 1% HILM had no effect on laying hens, and supplementation of 3% HILM increased the egg weight and Haugh unit. Supplementation of 3% HILM or 5% HILM have a negative effect on the eggshell thickness, yolk index, and albumen height during the early stage of the experiment. Supplementation of 3% HILM increased the C14:0, C17:0, and C20:2 contents of yolk, the Glu, Val, Met, Phe, and Leu contents of egg. The plasma antioxidant status and immune response improved by dietary addition of HILM at 3% levels.

Tungsten is both naturally occurring and an anthropogenically released contaminant metal in soils, sediments and water systems that typically exits as the soluble tungstate oxyanions, W(VI)O4 2− . Tungsten mobility and fate are strongly dependent on the adsorption of tungstate to mineral surfaces. However, environmental mineral surfaces are commonly coated with natural organic matter (NOM), and the role of this coating in the tungsten adsorption process, and thus in controlling tungsten reactivity and transport, is unclear. This study investigates W(VI) adsorption to ferrihydrite (Fh), a ubiquitous iron (hydr)oxide in soils and sediments, both in the absence and presence of humic acid (HA), a widely occurring type of NOM, using batch experiments coupled with spectroscopic and thermodynamic techniques. Kinetic results indicate that access to the adsorption sites for W(VI) on the organomineral surfaces is limited when Fh is coprecipitated with HA. Commensurate with this observation, batch experiments show that HA decreases W(VI) adsorption to Fh over a wide pH range (4-11), and this inhibitory effect is more pronounced at higher HA concentration. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurements demonstrate the formation of inner-sphere type W complexes on both the Fh and HA fraction of the Fh-HA binary composite. In particular, ~40% of the adsorbed W(VI) species is reduced to W(V) in the presence of HA. Attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) results show the presence of poly tungstate species on Fh, particularly at lower pH and in the presence of HA. Isothermal titration calorimetry shows that W(VI) adsorption to Fh is an exothermic process both in the presence and absence of HA, and that process is accompanied by a positive entropy. The findings of this work suggest that NOM not only mobilizes tungstate but also reduces tungstate from W(VI) to W(V) at environmental iron (hydr)oxide-water interfaces, which is of significance for evaluating the migration and bioavailability of tungsten in both natural and contaminated environments.