Insights into the proteomic profile of newly harvested corn and metagenomic analysis of the broiler intestinal microbiota

Background:The use of newly harvested corn in feed causes wet droppings in broilers and increased feed cost which was termed as“new season grain problem”.The present study was conducted to evaluate the proteomic profile of newly harvested corn and the subsequent influence on intestinal microbiol community for broiler chickens.Methods:Newly harvested corn stored for either half a month(HM)or two months(TM)was used,and the pasting properties,total soluble sugars,and proteomic analysis technology was used to explore the influence of storage on natural aging corn properties.Additionally,seventy-two 7-day-old Ross 308 male broiler chicken were fed with different stored corn.Apparent metabolizable energy(AME),digesta viscosity,intestinal morphology and microbiota were examined to explore the influence of feed corn storage on broiler chickens.Results:Pasting properties in the TM corn exhibited decreased viscoelastic properties.Proteomic studies found a total of 26 proteins that were differentially expressed between the two treatment groups.Proteins involved in starch and polysaccharides biosynthesis were upregulated in TM compared with HM.Chickens fed on TM diet had higher relative energy utilization compared to the HM birds.With increased corn storage,the relative digesta viscosity decreased significantly(P≤0.05).The total number of goblet cells and lymphocytes was lower in chickens fed the TM diet.The microbiota data showed that the TM chickens had decreased abundance of diarrheal bacteria such as Hungatella hathewayi and Bacteroides fragilis,and increased butyrate-producing bacteria such as Alistipes compared to the HM chickens.Conclusions:Storage of newly harvested corn induced the synthetic reaction of large molecules and changed the solubility of starch and protein with increasing soluble sugars and decreasing pasting properties that may improve the fermentation of intestinal microbiota,improve the energy utilization and protect gut health without the risk of diarrhea.

Westward Migration of Tropical Cyclone Activity in the Western North Pacific during 1982–2020:Features and Possible Causes

The westward migration of tropical cyclone(TC)activity has been identified in the western North Pacific(WNP),but the related features and causes remain elusive.Here,based on the best track data from China,Japan,and the US,and the NCEP–NCAR reanalysis data in 1982–2020,we investigate characteristics of the westward migration of the WNP TC activity with various metrics,and reveal possible causes for the migration of TC tracks through analyzing its seasonality and dependence on environmental conditions.The results show that the WNP TCs show significant westward migrations in a number of metrics,including location of tracks,genesis,the first track point at which TC reaches its lifetime-maximum intensity,and the last track point in the TC lifetime.It is found that TC tracks exhibit more significant westward migrations in the easterly steering flow than in the westerly steering flow.Meanwhile,the TC longitude shift shows notable seasonal variations,for which the TCs in the easterlies move further west than those in the westerlies during July–September,vice versa during October–December.The dependence of the westward migration of TC tracks on background steering flow is associated with the different environmental conditions.The westward shift in the westerly steering is mainly due to the reduced vertical wind shear(VWS),while the weakened zonal easterly steering and reduced VWS are both closely related to the westward migration in the easterly steering.These results have important implications for understanding current and future variations in TC longitude shift.

Autocatalytic strategy for tuning drug release from peptide-drug supramolecular hydrogel

Peptide-drug conjugates(PDCs) composed of peptide, spacer and drug have gained extensive attention in the field of drug delivery owing to its precise control over the drug payload and architecture. However,the achievement of controllable and rapid drug release at targeted site by PDCs is still a great challenge for pharmaceutist. Herein, we introduced the histidine residue into PDCs to generate a supramolecular hydrogel via a p H-trigger strategy, which exhibited an autocatalytic effect to precisely tune drug release from PDCs hydrogel. Using indomethacin(Idm) as model drug, various PDCs(Y(Idm)EEH, Y(Idm)EEK and Y(Idm)EER) were synthesized and their self-assembling properties were investigated in terms of critical aggregation concentration(CAC), transmission electron microscopy(TEM) and rheometer. Introduction of histidine residue into PDCs presented a robust catalytic activity on the ester hydrolysis of p-nitrophenyl acetate in aqueous solution, as well conferred the autocatalytic capacity to hydrolyze the PDCs into active parent drug(Idm). Overall, we reported an autocatalytic activity of histidine residue to precisely tune drug release from PDCs hydrogels.

Methionine deficiency and its hydroxy analogue influence chicken intestinal 3-dimensional organoid development

Methionine and its hydroxy analogue(MHA)have been shown to benefit mouse intestinal regeneration.The intestinal organoid is a good model that directly reflects the impact of certain nutrients or chemicals on intestinal development.Here,we aimed to establish a chicken intestinal organoid culture method first and then use the model to explore the influence of methionine deficiency and MHA on intestinal organoid development.The results showed that 125-mm cell strainer exhibited the highest efficiency for chicken embryo crypt harvesting.We found that transforming growth factor-b inhibitor(A8301)supplementation promoted enterocyte differentiation at the expense of the proliferation of intestinal stem cells(ISC).The mitogen-activated protein kinase p38 inhibitor(SB202190)promoted intestinal organoid formation and enterocyte differentiation but suppressed the differentiation of enteroendocrine cells,goblet cells and Paneth cells.However,the suppression of enteroendocrine cell and Paneth cell differentiation by SB202190 was alleviated at the presence of A8301.The glycogen synthase kinase 3 inhibitor(CHIR99021),valproic acid(VPA)alone and their combination promoted chicken intestinal organoid formation and enterocyte differentiation at the expense of the expression of Paneth cells and goblet cells.Chicken serum significantly improved organoid formation,especially in the presence of A8301,SB202190,CHIR99021,and VPA,but inhibited the differentiation of Paneth cells and enteroendocrine cells.Chicken serum at a concentration of 0.25%meets the requirement of chicken intestinal organoid development,and the beneficial effect of chicken serum on chicken intestinal organoid culture could not be replaced by fetal bovine serum and insulin-like growth factor-1.Moreover,commercial mouse organoid culture medium supplemented with A8301,SB202190,CHIR99021,VPA,and chicken serum promotes chicken organoid budding.Based on the chicken intestinal organoid model,we found that methionine deficiency mimicked by cycloleucine suppressed organoid formation and organoid size,and this effect was reinforced with increased cycloleucine concentrations.Methionine hydroxy analogue promoted regeneration of ISC but decreased cell differentiation compared with the results obtained with L-methionine.In conclusion,our results provide a potentially excellent guideline for chicken intestinal organoid culture and insights into methionine function in crypt development.

A new method for the prediction of network security situations based on recurrent neural network with gated recurrent unit

Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to solve the shortage of the existing methods for the prediction of network security situations(NSS).Because the conventional methods for the prediction of NSS,such as support vector machine,particle swarm optimization,etc.,lack accuracy,robustness and efficiency,in this study,the authors propose a new method for the prediction of NSS based on recurrent neural network(RNN)with gated recurrent unit.Design/methodology/approach-This method extracts internal and external information features from the original time-series network data for the first time.Then,the extracted features are applied to the deep RNN model for training and validation.After iteration and optimization,the accuracy of predictions of NSS will be obtained by the well-trained model,and the model is robust for the unstable network data.Findings-Experiments on bench marked data set show that the proposed method obtains more accurate and robust prediction results than conventional models.Although the deep RNN models need more time consumption for training,they guarantee the accuracy and robustness of prediction in return for validation.Originality/value-In the prediction of NSS time-series data,the proposed internal and external information features are well described the original data,and the employment of deep RNN model will outperform the state-of-the-arts models.

Removal of trace Cr(VI) from water using chitosan-iron nanowires in porous anodic alumina

Chitosan-iron nanowires in porous anodic alumina(PAA) have been successfully prepared under ambient conditions as an adsorbent. The adsorbent was characterized by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and N_2-BET surface area. The results showed that PAA can disperse and protect Fe^0 nanorods from oxidation. The adsorption characteristics of trace Cr(VI) onto adsorbent have been examined at different initial Cr(VI) concentrations with pH 5. Batch adsorption studies show that the removal percentage of adsorbent for the removal of trace Cr(VI) is strongly dependent on the initial Cr(VI) concentrations. Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models were used to analyze the experiment data. The adsorption of trace Cr(VI) by adsorbent is well modeled by the Langmuir isotherm and the maximum adsorption capacity of Cr(VI) is calculated as 123.95 mg/g which is very closed to the experiment results. Intraparticle diffusion study shows that the intraparticle diffusion of adsorbent is not the sole rate-controlling step. The negative value of Gibbs free energy change, DG^0, indicated that the process of Cr(VI) onto adsorbent was spontaneous. This work has demonstrated that chitosan-iron nanowires in porous anodic alumina as an adsorbent has promising potential for heavy metal removal at trace level.