1,721,022 research outputs found
Elemental composition in commercial dry extruded and moist canned dog food
No full textThe aim of the study was to investigate elemental contents in commercial pet foods for adult dogs at maintenance. The elemental composition of 15 dry extruded diets (DED) and 22 moist canned diets (MCD) collected from a pet shop were analyzed in triplicate with inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy and with mass spectrometry for Se. Significantly higher contents of Ca, P, (P < 0.05), K and Na (P < 0.0001) were measured in MCD than in DED, whilst the contrary was observed for Cu and Zn (P = 0.001). All the analyzed foods supplied on average micro minerals above the recommended daily requirements of FEDIAF, except for Cu (mean supply of foods 85%+12) in the MCD and Se both in DED (mean supply in foods 21%+4) and MCD (mean supply in foods 34%+7) samples. All the analyzed foods supplied macro elements above the recommended daily allowances except for K (73%+6) in the DED and Mg (92%+5) in MCD. Principal component analysis with essential elements (EE) as input variables (Ca, P, K, Na, Mg, Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, Se) explained 63.85% of total variance with the first two components and clustered DED and MCD. Factor scores of Cu, Zn, Mg and Mn were higher for MCD and Ca, P, K and Na for DED. Significantly higher (P < 0.01) frequency of presence of non essential elements (NEE) Cd, Cr, Li and Pb (p < 0.01) were observed in MCD in comparison to DED. Although there are limitations in this study, the results showed a wide variability of elemental contents among per foods and suggest the need of routinely analysis to accomplish with the recommended daily allowances and for the
Age-dependent regulation of ELP1 exon 20 splicing in Familial Dysautonomia by RNA Polymerase II kinetics and chromatin structure.
Get PDFFamilial Dysautonomia (FD) is a rare disease caused by ELP1 exon 20 skipping. Here we clarify the role of RNA Polymerase II (RNAPII) and chromatin on this splicing event. A slow RNAPII mutant and chromatin-modifying chemicals that reduce the rate of RNAPII elongation induce exon skipping whereas chemicals that create a more relaxed chromatin exon inclusion. In the brain of a mouse transgenic for the human FD-ELP1 we observed on this gene an age-dependent decrease in the RNAPII density profile that was most pronounced on the alternative exon, a robust increase in the repressive marks H3K27me3 and H3K9me3 and a decrease of H3K27Ac, together with a progressive reduction in ELP1 exon 20 inclusion level. In HEK 293T cells, selective drug-induced demethylation of H3K27 increased RNAPII elongation on ELP1 and SMN2, promoted the inclusion of the corresponding alternative exons, and, by RNA-sequencing analysis, induced changes in several alternative splicing events. These data suggest a co-transcriptional model of splicing regulation in which age-dependent changes in H3K27me3/Ac modify the rate of RNAPII elongation and affect processing of ELP1 alternative exon 20
Cows relocation affects exosomes and their cargos in bovine milk
No full textExtracellular vesicles in milk contains several compounds, as lipids, proteins, noncoding RNAs, and mRNAs. Among the different types of extracellular vesicles, exosomes have attracted researchers since their sorting cargos is a regulated, nonrandom process, which is heavily involved in cell-to-cell communication.
The aim of the study was to analyse the variations of RNAs in milk exosomes in response to the relocation of dairy cows between production groups. The study was carried out on 76 lactating cows during the relocation from high yielding group to low yielding group. The extent of stress was evaluated by means of milk cortisol in samples collected in the afternoon from 2 days before to 3 days after the change of the group. Mean cortisol concentrations significantly increase on the day of relocation (day 3) and on the days 4 and 5. A subgroup of 6 cows were selected according to cortisol variations after the relocation. Cows were ranked according to cortisol increase after relocation and the 3 cows with the highest variation and the 3 cows with the lowest variation were selected. Pools of Milk samples of days 1 and 2 (Before) and days 4 and 5 (After) were prepared for exosomes isolation using a commercial kit (ExoEasy Maxi Kit, QIAGEN).
Exosomes were visualized with transmission electron microscopy (TEM) after immunolabeling followed by negative stain and electron microscopy was carried out targeting CD63 and HSC70 and analyzed on Philips CM10. Images were recorded at 80 kV. Total extracted RNAs were quality checked using fluorometric quantification Qubit and processed with Illumina® TruSeq® Small RNA Library Prep protocol. Libraries were sequenced to 50 bp using an Illumina HiScan SQ. The mean number of sequences for the 12 samples was 64 millions of reads. Sequences were mapped on GCA_000003205.6_Btau_5.0.1 with Rsubread, annotated with GCF_000003205.7_Btau_5.0.1_genomic.gff and compared using Bioconductor DESeq2 software.
Overall, 9 miRNA and 7 lncRNA resulted differentially (P<0.05 FDR) expressed between Before and After groups, suggesting a potential role of exosome cargos as a proxy for animal resilienc
Developmental dyslexia and its complex genetic puzzle
Get PDFGenetics suggest that DD is an additive or interactive effect of multiple genetic and environmental risk factors. In 2014 an interdisciplinary collaboration between the University of Trieste and the Institute for Maternal and Child Health IRCCS “Burlo Garofolo” of Trieste started, with the aim of performing a genetic study in Italian families with dyslexia
The rice foot rot pathogen Dickeya zeae alters the in-field plant microbiome
No full textStudies on bacterial plant diseases have thus far
been focused on the single bacterial species causing
the disease, with very little attention given to the
many other microorganisms present in the microbiome.
This study intends to use pathobiome analysis
of the rice foot rot disease, caused by Dickeya
zeae, as a case study to investigate the effects of this
bacterial pathogen to the total resident microbiome
and to highlight possible interactions between the
pathogen and the members of the community
involved in the disease process. The microbiome of
asymptomatic and the pathobiome of foot-rot symptomatic
field-grown rice plants over two growing
periods and belonging to two rice cultivars were
determined via 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing.
Results showed that the presence of D. zeae is associated
with an alteration of the resident bacterial
community in terms of species composition, abundance
and richness, leading to the formation of
microbial consortia linked to the disease state. Several
bacterial species were significantly co-presented
with the pathogen in the two growing periods
suggesting that they could be involved in the disease
process. Besides, culture-dependent isolation and in
planta inoculation studies of a bacterial member of
the pathobiome, identified as positive correlated with
the pathogen in our in silico analysis, indicated that it
benefits from the presence of D. zeae. A similar
microbiome/pathobiome experiment was also performed
in a symptomatically different rice disease
evidencing that not all plant diseases have the same
consequence/relationship with the plant microbiome.
This study moves away from a pathogen-focused
stance and goes towards a more ecological perception
considering the effect of the entire microbial
community which could be involved in the pathogenesis,
persistence, transmission and evolution of plant
pathogens
A mutation in the ZNF687 gene that is responsible for the severe form of Paget's disease of bone causes severely altered bone remodeling and promotes hepatocellular carcinoma onset in a knock-in mouse model
Get PDF: Paget's disease (PDB) is a late-onset bone remodeling disorder with a broad spectrum of symptoms and complications. One of the most aggressive forms is caused by the P937R mutation in the ZNF687 gene. Although the genetic involvement of ZNF687 in PDB has been extensively studied, the molecular mechanisms underlying this association remain unclear. Here, we describe the first Zfp687 knock-in mouse model and demonstrate that the mutation recapitulates the PDB phenotype, resulting in severely altered bone remodeling. Through microcomputed tomography analysis, we observed that 8-month-old mutant mice showed a mainly osteolytic phase, with a significant decrease in the trabecular bone volume affecting the femurs and the vertebrae. Conversely, osteoblast activity was deregulated, producing disorganized bone. Notably, this phenotype became pervasive in 16-month-old mice, where osteoblast function overtook bone resorption, as highlighted by the presence of woven bone in histological analyses, consistent with the PDB phenotype. Furthermore, we detected osteophytes and intervertebral disc degeneration, outlining for the first time the link between osteoarthritis and PDB in a PDB mouse model. RNA sequencing of wild-type and Zfp687 knockout RAW264.7 cells identified a set of genes involved in osteoclastogenesis potentially regulated by Zfp687, e.g., Tspan7, Cpe, Vegfc, and Ggt1, confirming its role in this process. Strikingly, in this mouse model, the mutation was also associated with a high penetrance of hepatocellular carcinomas. Thus, this study established an essential role of Zfp687 in the regulation of bone remodeling, offering the potential to therapeutically treat PDB, and underlines the oncogenic potential of ZNF687
Successful treatment of life-threatening mycobacteriosis using adjunctive gamma-interferon therapy with genetic analysis
Get PDFIn our case series of 6 consecutive patients with severe disseminated mycobacterial infection and lymphocytopenia who did not responded to antimycobacterial drugs alone we used adjunctive IFN-γ treatment. IFN-gamma was effective in four out of the six cases. We identified two genes potentially correlating with NTM and TB severity (MUC5AC and FCGBP), and one (CCL4L2) suggesting a positive response to IFN-γ therapy. Further research is required to validate these findings. We propose the extended use of INF-γ as a rescue therapy in non-responder-severe cases of mycobacteriosis and encourage the use of genetic analysis to predict outcome and response to INF-γ treatment
Breed and adaptive response modulate bovine peripheral blood cells' transcriptome
Get PDFBackground: Adaptive response includes a variety of physiological modifications to face changes in external or internal conditions and adapt to a new situation. The acute phase proteins (APPs) are reactants synthesized against environmental stimuli like stress, infection, inflammation. Methods: To delineate the differences in molecular constituents of adaptive response to the environment we performed the whole-blood transcriptome analysis in Italian Holstein (IH) and Italian Simmental (IS) breeds. For this, 663 IH and IS cows from six commercial farms were clustered according to the blood level of APPs. Ten extreme individuals (five APP+ and APP- variants) from each farm were selected for the RNA-seq using the Illumina sequencing technology. Differentially expressed (DE) genes were analyzed using dynamic impact approach (DIA) and DAVID annotation clustering. Milk production data were statistically elaborated to assess the association of APP+ and APP- gene expression patterns with variations in milk parameters. Results: The overall de novo assembly of cDNA sequence data generated 13,665 genes expressed in bovine blood cells. Comparative genomic analysis revealed 1,152 DE genes in the comparison of all APP+ vs. all APP- variants; 531 and 217 DE genes specific for IH and IS comparison respectively. In all comparisons overexpressed genes were more represented than underexpressed ones. DAVID analysis revealed 369 DE genes across breeds, 173 and 73 DE genes in IH and IS comparison respectively. Among the most impacted pathways for both breeds were vitamin B6 metabolism, folate biosynthesis, nitrogen metabolism and linoleic acid metabolism. Conclusions: Both DIA and DAVID approaches produced a high number of significantly impacted genes and pathways with a narrow connection to adaptive response in cows with high level of blood APPs. A similar variation in gene expression and impacted pathways between APP+ and APP- variants was found between two studied breeds. Such similarity was also confirmed by annotation clustering of the DE genes. However, IH breed showed higher and more differentiated impacts compared to IS breed and such particular features in the IH adaptive response could be explained by its higher metabolic activity. Variations of milk production data were significantly associated with APP+ and APP- gene expression patterns
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