Influences of dietary protein sources and crude protein levels on intracellular free amino acid profile in the longissimus dorsi muscle of finishing gilts

Background： The current study was carried out to determine effects of dietary protein source and crude protein（CP）level on carcass characteristics, meat quality, and muscle amino acid（AA） profile in finishing gilts. The experiment was designed as a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement with two sources of dietary proteins（cottonseed meal, CSM vs. soybean meal, SBM） and two levels of CP（12 % vs. 14 %, as-fed basis）. Seventy-two crossbred gilts（89.5 ± 0.9 kg） were allotted to one of four dietary treatments in a randomized complete block design for a period of 28 d. All diets were formulated to be isoenergetic and similar concentrations of standardized ileal digestible essential AA covering the nutrient requirements of pigs.Results： Growth, carcass characteristics and meat quality were not affected by dietary protein source nor crude protein level（P ＆gt; 0.10） except that average daily feed intake was increased by CSM diets（P = 0.03）. Gilts offered reduced protein diets had lower muscle p H45min（P 〈 0.05）. Neither dietary protein source nor crude protein level influenced N deposition. However, reduced protein diets decreased N intake, N excretion, and serum urea nitrogen content, whilst improved N efficiency（P 〈 0.01）. CSM diets increased N intake（P = 0.04）,but did not depress N efficiency. The concentrations of phenylalanine, tryptophan, cysteine and tyrosine（P 〈 0.05） of the longissimus muscle were decreased when gilts offered CSM diets, while muscle intracellular free valine concentration was increased（P = 0.03）. The gilts offered reduced protein diets had greater intracellular concentrations of free methionine, lysine, and total AA in muscle（P 〈 0.05）.Conclusion： These results suggest that CSM could replace SBM as a primary protein source in finishing pig diets in terms of performance, N efficiency, carcass characteristics, and meat quality, but decrease the concentrations of muscle specific AA. Furthermore, the reduced protein diet played an important role in increasing muscle intracellular concentrations of specific free amino acids（FAA）, and in reducing the relative ratios of specific FAA to lysine in longissimus dorsi muscle of pig, whose biological meaning needs further studies.

Transformation of Sucrose to Starch and Protein in Rice Leaves and Grains under Two Establishment Methods

Six rice varieties, PR120, PR116, Feng Ai Zan, PR115, PAU201 and Punjab Mehak 1 were raised under aerobic and transplanting conditions to assess the effects of planting conditions on sucrose metabolising enzymes in relation to the transformation of free sugars to starch and protein in flag leaves and grains. Activities of sucrose synthase, sucrose phosphate synthase and acid invertase increased till flowering stage in leaves and mid-milky stage（14 d after flowering） in grains and thereafter declined in concomitant with the contents of reducing sugar. Under aerobic conditions, the activities of acid invertase and sucrose synthase（cleavage） significantly decreased in conjunction with the decrease in non-reducing sugars and starch content in all the varieties. Disruption of starch biosynthesis under the influence of aerobic conditions in both leaves and grains and the higher build up of sugars possibly resulted in their favoured utilization in nitrogen metabolism. Feng Ai Zan, PR115 and PR120 maintained higher levels of sucrose synthase enzymes in grains and leaves and contents of metabolites（amino acid, protein and non-reducing sugar） under aerobic conditions, while PR116, Punjab Mehak 1 and PAU201 performed better under transplanting conditions, thus showing their adaptation to environmental stress. Yield gap between aerobic and transplanting rice is attributed primarily to the difference in sink activity and strength. Overall, it appear that up-regulation of sucrose synthase（synthesis） and sucrose phosphate synthase under aerobic conditions might be responsible in enhancing growth and productivity of rice varieties.

Characterization and analysis of ribosomal proteins in two marine calanoid copepods

Copepods are among the most abundant and successful metazoans in the marine ecosystem. However, genomic resources related to fundamental cellular processes are still limited in this particular group of crustaceans. Ribosomal proteins are the building blocks of ribosomes, the primary site for protein synthesis. In this study, we characterized and analyzed the c DNAs of cytoplasmic ribosomal proteins(c RPs) of two calanoid copepods, P seudodiaptomus poplesia and A cartia pacifi ca. We obtained 79 c RP c DNAs from P. poplesia and 67 from A. pacifi ca by c DNA library construction/sequencing and rapid amplifi cation of c DNA ends. Analysis of the nucleic acid composition showed that the copepod c RP-encoding genes had higher GC content in the protein-coding regions(CDSs) than in the untranslated regions(UTRs), and single nucleotide repeats(>3 repeats) were common, with "A" repeats being the most frequent, especially in the CDSs. The 3′-UTRs of the c RP genes were signifi cantly longer than the 5′-UTRs. Codon usage analysis showed that the third positions of the codons were dominated by C or G. The deduced amino acid sequences of the c RPs contained high proportions of positively charged residues and had high p I values. This is the fi rst report of a complete set of c RP-encoding genes from copepods. Our results shed light on the characteristics of c RPs in copepods, and provide fundamental data for further studies of protein synthesis in copepods. The copepod c RP information revealed in this study indicates that additional comparisons and analysis should be performed on different taxonomic categories such as orders and families.

Grouping of amino acids and recognition of protein structurally conserved regions by reduced alphabets of amino acids

Sequence alignment is a common method for finding protein structurally conserved/similar regions. However, sequence alignment is often not accurate if sequence identities between to-be-aligned se- quences are less than 30%. This is because that for these sequences, different residues may play similar structural roles and they are incorrectly aligned during the sequence alignment using substitu- tion matrix consisting of 20 types of residues. Based on the similarity of physicochemical features, residues can be clustered into a few groups. Using such simplified alphabets, the complexity of protein sequences is reduced and at the same time the key information encoded in the sequences remains. As a result, the accuracy of sequence alignment might be improved if the residues are properly clustered. Here, by using a database of aligned protein structures (DAPS), a new clustering method based on the substitution scores is proposed for the grouping of residues, and substitution matrices of residues at different levels of simplification are constructed. The validity of the reduced alphabets is confirmed by relative entropy analysis. The reduced alphabets are applied to recognition of protein structurally conserved/similar regions by sequence alignment. The results indicate that the accuracy or efficiency of sequence alignment can be improved with the optimal reduced alphabet with N around 9.

不同纸张上手印的茚二酮显现研究

目的:评价茚二酮对不同纸张上潜在手印的显现效果,以确定茚二酮法的应用前景。方法:针对茚二酮的特点设计实验方案,用具体的实验过程以及实验结果来论证茚二酮的显现效果。结果:茚二酮对30天以内的汗液手印的显出率能达到75%以上,对30天以内的纯鸡蛋白手印的显出率能达到95%。结论:茚二酮对于不同纸张上的汗液手印和蛋白质手印显现效果良好。

Nutritional evaluation of whole soybean curd made from different soybean materials based on amino acid profiles

Objectives:Amino acid profiles of whole soybean curds(WSCs)and conventional soybean curds(CSCs)were comparatively studied to 1.,evaluate their nutritional value and 2.,study the suitable soybean material to fabricate WSCs.Materials and Methods:Nine types of soybean materials were selected to make WSCs and CSCs.Protein digestibility-corrected amino acid score(PDCAAS)and principal component analysis were selected to perform the comparative analysis of amino acid profiles of the products.Results:Total contents of amino acids in WSCs and CSCs were 41.24-54.87 mg/g and 27.77-36.82 mg/g.Content ranges of essential amino acids were 13.59-19.38 mg/g and 8.46-11.76 mg/g for WSCs and CSCs.The essential amino acid pattern of WSCs was basically close to amino acid pattern spectrum requirements except valine and sulfur amino acids.As a limiting amino acid,methionine represented less than 0.4 for PDCAAS in all soybean curds except WSCs made from relay-cropping Nandou12 and Nandou25.Conclusions:The overall quality of amino acids in WSCs was higher than that in CSCs,indicating that WSCs indeed exhibited higher nutritional value than CSCs from the viewpoint of amino acid profile.WSCs with the high nutritional value could be made using Nandou25 and relay-cropping Nandou12 as materials.