Project description:Drought is a major limiting factor in foraging grass yield and quality. Medicago ruthenica is a high-quality forage legume with drought resistance, cold tolerance, and strong adaptability. In this study, we integrated transcriptome, small RNA, and degradome sequencing in identifying drought response genes, miRNAs, and key miRNA-target pairs in M. ruthenica under drought and re-watering treatment conditions. A total of 3,905 genes and 50 miRNAs (45 conserved and 5 novel miRNAs) were significantly differentially expressed between the re-watering (RW) vs. drought (DS) comparison and control (CK) groups. The degradome sequencing analysis revealed that 348 miRNAs (37 novel and 311 conserved miRNAs) were identified with 6,912 target transcripts, forming 11,390 miRNA-target pairs in the three libraries. There were 38 differentially expressed targets from 16 miRNAs in DS vs. CK, 31 from 11 miRNAs in DS vs. RW, and 6 from 3 miRNAs in RW vs. CK; 21,18, and 3 miRNA-target gene pairs showed reverse expression patterns in DS vs. CK, DS vs. RW, and RW vs. CK comparison groups, respectively. These findings provide valuable information for further functional characterization of genes and miRNAs in response to abiotic stress, in general, and drought stress in M. ruthenica, and potentially contribute to drought resistance breeding of forage in the future.
Project description:Drought is a major limiting factor in foraging grass yield and quality. Medicago ruthenica is a high-quality forage legume with drought resistance, cold tolerance, and strong adaptability. In this study, we integrated transcriptome, small RNA, and degradome sequencing in identifying drought response genes, miRNAs, and key miRNA-target pairs in M. ruthenica under drought and re-watering treatment conditions. A total of 3,905 genes and 50 miRNAs (45 conserved and 5 novel miRNAs) were significantly differentially expressed between the re-watering (RW) vs. drought (DS) comparison and control (CK) groups. The degradome sequencing analysis revealed that 348 miRNAs (37 novel and 311 conserved miRNAs) were identified with 6,912 target transcripts, forming 11,390 miRNA-target pairs in the three libraries. There were 38 differentially expressed targets from 16 miRNAs in DS vs. CK, 31 from 11 miRNAs in DS vs. RW, and 6 from 3 miRNAs in RW vs. CK; 21,18, and 3 miRNA-target gene pairs showed reverse expression patterns in DS vs. CK, DS vs. RW, and RW vs. CK comparison groups, respectively. These findings provide valuable information for further functional characterization of genes and miRNAs in response to abiotic stress, in general, and drought stress in M. ruthenica, and potentially contribute to drought resistance breeding of forage in the future.
Project description:Drought is a major limiting factor in foraging grass yield and quality. Medicago ruthenica is a high-quality forage legume with drought resistance, cold tolerance, and strong adaptability. In this study, we integrated transcriptome, small RNA, and degradome sequencing in identifying drought response genes, miRNAs, and key miRNA-target pairs in M. ruthenica under drought and re-watering treatment conditions. A total of 3,905 genes and 50 miRNAs (45 conserved and 5 novel miRNAs) were significantly differentially expressed between the re-watering (RW) vs. drought (DS) comparison and control (CK) groups. The degradome sequencing analysis revealed that 348 miRNAs (37 novel and 311 conserved miRNAs) were identified with 6,912 target transcripts, forming 11,390 miRNA-target pairs in the three libraries. There were 38 differentially expressed targets from 16 miRNAs in DS vs. CK, 31 from 11 miRNAs in DS vs. RW, and 6 from 3 miRNAs in RW vs. CK; 21,18, and 3 miRNA-target gene pairs showed reverse expression patterns in DS vs. CK, DS vs. RW, and RW vs. CK comparison groups, respectively. These findings provide valuable information for further functional characterization of genes and miRNAs in response to abiotic stress, in general, and drought stress in M. ruthenica, and potentially contribute to drought resistance breeding of forage in the future.
Project description:Because antibiotics have been widely used to prevent severe losses due to infectious fishery diseases, the liberal application and overuse of antibiotics has led to the spread and evolution of bacterial resistance, food safety hazards, and environmental issues. The use of some antibiotics, including florfenicol and enrofloxacin, is allowed in aquaculture in China. Accordingly, to better address the concerns and questions associated with the impact of administered enrofloxacin and florfenicol to grass carp, here we investigated the immune response, bacterial diversity, and transcriptome of the intestine of C. idella treated with these oral antibiotics. The aim of this study was to provide an in-depth evaluation of the antibiotic-induced patterns and dynamics of the microbiota grass carp and the potential mechanism involved.
Project description:Beef represents a major diet component and one of the major sources of protein in human. The beef industry in the United States is currently undergoing changes and is facing increased demands especially for natural grass-fed beef. The grass-fed beef obtained their nutrients directly from pastures, which contained limited assimilable energy but abundant amount of fiber. On the contrary, the grain-fed steers received a grain-based regime that served as an efficient source of high-digestible energy. Lately, ruminant animals have been accused to be a substantial contributor for the green house effect. Therefore, the concerns from environmentalism, animal welfare and public health have driven consumers to choose grass-fed beef. Rumen is one of the key workshops to digest forage constituting a critical step to supply enough nutrients for animals’ growth and production. We hypothesize that rumen may function differently in grass- and grain-fed regimes. The objective of this study was to find the differentially expressed genes in the ruminal wall of grass-fed and grain-fed steers, and then explore the potential biopathways. In this study, the RNA Sequencing (RNA-Seq) method was used to measure the gene expression level in the ruminal wall. The total number of reads per sample ranged from 24,697,373 to 36,714,704. The analysis detected 342 differentially expressed genes between ruminal wall samples of animals raised under different regimens. The Fisher’s exact test performed in the Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) software found 16 significant molecular networks. Additionally, 13 significantly enriched pathways were identified, most of which were related to cell development and biosynthesis. Our analysis demonstrated that most of the pathways enriched with the differentially expressed genes were related to cell development and biosynthesis. Our results provided valuable insights into the molecular mechanisms resulting in the phenotype difference between grass-fed and grain-fed cattle.
Project description:The use of some antibiotics, including florfenicol and enrofloxacin, is allowed in aquaculture in China. Accordingly, to better address the concerns and questions associated with the impact of administered enrofloxacin and florfenicol to grass carp, here we investigated the transcriptome of the intestine of C. idella treated with these oral antibiotics. The aim of this study was to provide an in-depth evaluation of the antibiotic-induced patterns and dynamics of the microbiota grass carp and the potential mechanism involved.