Project description:We aimed to elucidate the effects of feeding condition (indoor grain-feeding vs. grazing on pasture) on c-miRNAs in Japanese Black (JB) cattle (Wagyu). The cattle at 18 months old were divided into pasture feeding and conventional indoor grain feeding for 5 months. Microarray analysis of c-miRNAs from the plasma extracellular vesicles led to the detection of a total of 202 bovine miRNAs in the plasma, including 15 miRNAs that differed between the feeding conditions.
Project description:Green manure is widely advocated as a sustainable alternative to chemical fertilizers in crop systems, yet the mechanisms underlying its yield benefits remain unclear. Moreover, vigorous vegetative growth under green manure can elevate lodging risk, undermining yield and harvest efficiency. Here, we describe mechanisms by which hairy vetch–based green manure enhances yield and evaluate the practical value of deploying functionally weak alleles of gibberellin 20-oxidase (GA20ox) in this management context. We conducted field comparisons of green manure and conventional chemical fertilization to evaluate effects on rice productivity, grain appearance quality, and canopy physiology. Green manure significantly increased grain yield and grain appearance quality in the leading Japanese cultivar ‘Koshihikari’, accompanied by higher lodging. By contrast, high-yielding cultivars homozygous for a single-copy GA20ox1 allele and/or a non-functional GA20ox2 allele maintained superior lodging resistance under green manure treatment while improving yield and grain appearance quality, indicating an effective combination of its treatment and genotypes. Physiologically, green manure increased chlorophyll index during vegetative growth and at the reproductive stage, and nitrogen (N) concentration on the whole plant. Furthermore, green manure increased flag-leaf width and tiller number; these canopy changes were associated with reduced panicle temperature at the ripening stage. Green manure treatment induced upregulation of OsNADH-GOGAT2, a known gene associated with increased N loading to grains, and more grain storage proteins, providing a positive link to improved grain appearance quality. Collectively, this study demonstrates that integrating hairy vetch with functionally weak GA20ox alleles can enhance productivity and grain appearance quality while mitigating lodging risk. This sheds light on the importance of aligning green-manure treatment with targeted allelic selection to stabilize performance across intensive-farming systems and reduce chemical fertilizer dependency.
Project description:Neotyphodium coenophialum is an endophytic fungus that infects most tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) pastures that are commonly used in animal grazing systems in the United States. Beef cattle grazing such pastures are impaired in health and production performance, resulting in a large economic loss in US food-animal production systems. Based on the clinical symptoms and laboratory analyses of blood, it was hypothesized that such affected cattle display liver-specific changes in the expression of gene transcripts that are associated with the metabolic enzymes and transporters critical for beef health and performance. Microarray analysis using the GeneChip Bovine Genome Array (Affymetrix, Inc., Santa Clara, CA) was conducted to determine if grazing endophyte-infected tall fescue pastures affects the liver gene expression profiles of growing beef steers. Nineteen steers were assigned to graze either a low toxic endophyte tall fescue-mixed grass (LE treatment, 5.7 ha, n = 9) or a high toxic endophyte infected tall fescue (HE treatment, 5.7 ha, n = 10) pasture located in the University of Kentucky Agricultural Research Center. All steers had ad libitum access to fresh water and an industry standard mineral-vitamin supplement. 88 days grazing on pasture. Approximately 2 g of tissue from the right lobe of the liver of each steer were collected for RNA extraction and microarray analysis.
Project description:Jugular whole blood samples (Tempus Blood RNA tubes) were collected and utilized from 43 cattle, specifically from all cattle diagnosed with bovine respiratory disease (BRD) during Texas backgrounding (n=32) and randomly selected cattle never treated for BRD (n=11). Total RNA was isolated from blood samples, and were library prepared and sequenced via Illumina NovaSeq 6000 S4 chemistry. Samples were bioinformatically processed in a HISAT2/StringTie2 pipeline, and stratified based on BRD diagnosis and marketing strategy (Auction versus Direct marketing and transport). Differential expression analysis was conducted in R, utilizing an additive, multifactor generalized linear model and blocking for Mississippi pasture and vaccination status. Genes were considered differentially expressed with an FDR cutoff of 0.05. The objective of this study was to identify differentially expressed genes and mechanisms within and across marketing cohorts with and without BRD.