PARK16 rs708730 Polymorphism Decreases Parkinson’s Disease Risk in European Ancestry Population:A Meta-analysis

Parkinson’s disease(PD)is a complex fatal chronic neurodegenerative disease most common in elderly people.The early genome-wide association studies(GWAS)found that the minor allele variant of PARK16 rs708730 polymorphism is a significant protective factor for PD in Caucasian populations.However,these results cannot be repeated by the following studies in Caucasian populations and other populations.We considered that the inconsistency of the findings may be caused by the small-scale samples or the heterogeneity among different populations.Therefore,in this study,we synthesized the previous related GWAS studies through three authoritative sources,and used the large-scale samples(10,645 PD cases and 30,499 controls)to reevaluate the association between rs708730 polymorphism and PD.The results showed that there is no association between them in Asian ancestry population.While,in European ancestry population,we found that the minor allele variant(G)of rs708730 polymorphism is significantly associated with a decreased risk of PD.Collectively,our findings further verified the association of rs708730 with PD and show its genetic heterogeneity among different populations,which can help to develop a better understanding of the PD’s pathogenesis.

A β-glucosidase-producing M-2 strain: Isolation from cow dung and fermentation parameter optimization for flaxseed cake

Flaxseed cake contains cyanogenic glucosides, which can be metabolized into hydrocyanic acid in an animal's body, leading to asphyxia poisoning in cells. Beta-glucosidase is highly efficient in degrading cyanogenic glucosides. The Cattle may have b-glucosidase-producing strains in the intestinal tract after eating small amounts of flaxseed cake for a long time. This study aimed to isolate of a strain from cow dung that produces b-glucosidase with high activity and can significantly reduce the amount of cyanogenic glucosides. We used cow dung as the microflora source and an esculin agar as the selective medium. After screening with 0.05% esculin and 0.01% ferric citrate, we isolated 5 strains producing high amounts of b-glucosidase. In vitro flaxseed cake fermentation was fermented by these 5 strains, in which the strain M-2 exerted the best effect(P < 0.05). The strain M-2 was identified as Lichtheimia ramosa and used as the fermentation strain to optimize the fermentation parameters by a single factor analysis and orthogonal experimental design. The optimum condition was as follows: inoculum size3%, water content 60%, time 144 h, and temperature 32℃. Under this condition, the removal rate of cyanogenic glucosides reached 89%, and crude protein increment reached 44%. These results provided a theoretical basis for the removal of cyanogenic glucosides in flaxseed and the comprehensive utilization of flaxseed cake.