Digestive

Objective: This study ascertained effects of roughage quality, period of day at meal termination and time lapse after feeding on digesta load in the rumen. Methods: Veld hay was untreated (PRQ), improved (IRQ) by treating with urea or semi-improved by spraying with urea (SIRQ). Experiment 1a used four rumen fistulated sheep to determine in-sacco degradability. Twelve sheep (56.3 ± 4.59 kg) were blocked by weight and randomly allocated to IRQ (n=6) and PRQ (n=6) to determine solid and liquid passage rates...

Objective: This study was conducted to investigate the effect different grinding levels of corn grain on ruminal fermentation and blood metabolites in Holstein steers fed TMR as a basal diet in order to provide fundamental data of corn grain for cattle in Korea. Methods: Four ruminally cannulated Holstein steers (BW 592 ± 29.9 kg) fed TMR as a basal diet were used and housed individually in an auto temperature and humidity modulated chamber (24ºC and 60% for 22 h/d)...

Objective: A 14-d trial was conducted to determine the effects of feeding corn naturally contaminated with aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) on growth performance, apparent ileal digestibility, serum hormones levels and gene expression of Na+, K+-ATPase in ducklings. Methods: A total of 704 ducklings were blocked on the basis of sex and body weight, and then allocated randomly to 1 of the following 2 treatments: 1) CON, basal diet and 2) AFB1, diets with 100% of normal corn replaced with AFB1 contaminated corn...

Methanobrevibacter smithii is the main human methanogen almost always found in the digestive tract of adults. Yet, the age at which M. smithii establishes itself as part of the developing intestinal microflora remains unknown. In order to gain insight into this, we developed a polyphasic approach, including microscopic observation by fluorescence in situ hybridisation, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) sequencing detection, identification and culture, to isolate and genotype M. smithii in one-day-old newborns' gastric juice specimens...

Dactylogyridae is overwhelmingly the most abundant and diverse taxon among monogeneans in continental waters of South America. Their small body size requires considerable sampling effort and training for collecting and identifying the worms from the gills, skin, nasal cavities, and other microhabitats. Indeed, diagnostic characteristics as sclerites and male copulatory complex are generally less than 100-μm long and are essential for taxonomic description and identification of species. Here, a combination of simple and routine methods for three-dimensional morphological studies on hard structures is proposed for dactylogirids: SDS treatment for clarification of specimens and enzymatic digestion with proteinase K for freeing sclerotized structures, followed by laser confocal microscopy...

The widespread use of molecular PCR-based assays in analytical and clinical laboratories brings about the need for test-specific, stable, and reliable external controls (EC) as well as standards and internal amplification controls (IC), in order to arrive at consistent test results. In addition, there is also a growing need to produce and provide stable, well-characterized molecular controls for quality assurance programs. In this study, we describe a novel approach to generate armored double-stranded DNA controls, which are encapsulated in baculovirus (BV) particles of the species Autographa californica multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus...

During vermicomposting, the organic wastes can be recycled into high-value products as mediated by earthworms through gut digestion, burrowing, casting and mucus excretion. However, to date, few studies have been done on the role of mucus in vermicomposting system compared to the effects of the other activities. Hence, this study investigated the potential role of earthworms' mucus in the decomposition and humification of organic wastes. For this, the mucus of Eisenia fetida was extracted and inoculated into three vermicomposting substrates using cow dung (CD), fruit and vegetable wastes (FVW), and sewage sludge (SS)...

Liver is a vital organ present in animals for detoxification, protein synthesis, digestion and other functions and its powerful regenerative capacity is well known. C. plagiosum is an abundant fish that is representative of the cartilaginous class in the southeast coastal region of China and its liver accounts for >70% of the fish's visceral weight and contains many bioactive substances. MicroRNAs (microRNAs) play important roles in a wide range of biological processes in eukaryotes, including cell proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis...

INTRODUCTION: In recent years, developments in virological tools have led to the easy detection of rhinoviruses and enteroviruses (E/RV). Their detection is very frequent in cases of airway involvement in children and their demonstrated causality. But the morbidity of E/RV in the neonatal period is unknown due to lack of epidemiological data. The objective of this study was to evaluate the incidence and clinical characteristics of these infections in hospitalized neonates. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed the virology specimens of all neonates hospitalized at the Caen University Hospital between 2006 and 2011...

The aim of this study was to investigate how controlled UVB irradiation in combination with reduced nutritional vitamin D (vitD) supply affects vitD status and Ca metabolism of growing goats and sheep. The hypothesis was that, like dairy cows, goats and sheep are able to compensate for the missing nutritional supply of vitD through endogenous production in the skin, with the consequence of a high vitD status and a balanced Ca homeostasis. Sixteen lambs and 14 goat kids aged 3 and a half months were housed in an UVB free environment and fed hay and a vitD-free concentrate over a period of 13 wk...

This study examined effects of the dose and viability of supplemented Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast strain YE1496 on ruminal fermentation and performance of lactating dairy cows. A second objective was to examine correlations between ruminal bacteria abundance and performance measures. Four ruminally cannulated lactating cows (284 ± 18 days in milk) were assigned randomly to 1 of 4 treatment sequences in a 4 × 4 Latin square experimental design using four 21-d experimental periods. Cows were fed a nonacidotic total mixed ration comprising 22...

High interindividual variation in growth performance is commonly observed in veal calf production and appears to depend on milk replacer (MR) composition. Our first objective was to examine whether variation in growth performance in healthy veal calves can be predicted from early life characterization of these calves. Our second objective was to determine whether these predictions differ between calves that are fed a high- or low-lactose MR in later life. A total of 180 male Holstein-Friesian calves arrived at the facilities at 17 ± 3...

The bioaccessibility and human health risks of heavy metals in PM2.5 and PM10 samples from three functional areas of Shanghai, China including a commercial area (CA), a residential area (RA), and an industrial area (IA), were investigated. Gamble's solution and physiologically based extraction test were employed to simulate human respiratory and digestive system, respectively. Both PM2.5 and PM10 concentration in the three areas exceeded the guideline of WHO, and followed the order of IA>CA≈RA. Zinc and Pb were the most abundant metals with a concentration range of 0...

In this study, bamboo (Phyllostachys pubescens) was successfully deconstructed using an integrated process (autohydrolysis and subsequent delignification). Xylooligosaccharides, high-purity lignin, and digestible substrates for producing glucose can be consecutively collected during the integrated process. The structural change and fate of lignin during autohydrolysis process was deeply investigated. Additionally, the structural characteristics and active functional groups of the lignin fractions obtained by these delignification processes were thoroughly investigated by NMR (2D-HSQC and (31)P NMR) and GPC techniques...

The present study describes bioavailability and chronic effects of bismuth to earthworms Eisenia andrei using OECD reproduction test. Adult earthworms were exposed to natural sandy soil contaminated artificially by bismuth citrate. Average total concentrations of bismuth in soil recovered by HNO3 digestion ranged from 75 to 289mg/kg. Results indicate that bismuth decreased significantly all reproduction parameters of Eisenia andrei at concentrations ≥ 116mg/kg. However, number of hatched cocoons and number of juveniles seem to be more sensitive than total number of cocoons, as determined by IC50; i...

Two lab-scale high solid anaerobic digesters fed with untreated sludge (R1) and thermally hydrolyzed sludge (R2) were operated to investigate the influence of thermal hydrolysis pretreatment (THP) on the degradation of individual macromolecular organic components (MOCs), as well as the functional and metabolic responses of microbes during anaerobic digestion (AD). The degradation of MOCs was improved by THP at different rates, in which improved degradation of proteins (by 49.0%) and hemicelluloses (by 25.0%) were the main factors contributing to the increase in volatile solids (VS) reduction...

BACKGROUND Developing a simple and efficient method of obtaining primary cultured VSMCs is necessary for basic cardiovascular research. MATERIAL AND METHODS The procedure of our new method mainly includes 6 steps: isolation of the aortic artery, removal of the fat tissue around the artery, separation of the media, cutting the media into small tissue blocks, transferring the tissue blocks to cell culture plates, and incubation until the cells reach confluence. The cells were identified as VSMCs by morphology and immunofluorescence...

Marine invertebrates associate with diverse microorganisms. Microorganisms even inhabit coelomic fluid (CF), namely, the fluid filling the main body cavity of echinoderms. The CF microbiota potentially impacts host health and disease. Here, we analysed the CF microbiota in two common coastal starfish species, Patiria pectinifera and Asterias amurensis. Although microbial community structures were highly variable among individual starfish, those of P. pectinifera were compositionally similar to those in the surrounding seawater...

The aim of the study is an evaluation of years of life lost by inhabitants of Poland according to the most important causes of mortality and identification of trends in the period 2000-2014. The study material included a database which contained information gathered from 5,601,568 death certificates of inhabitants of Poland. In order to calculate years of life lost, the SEYLLp index (Standard Expected Years of Life Lost per living person) was applied. We also calculated AAPC (Average Annual Percentage Change)...

How FACs-producing generalist and specialist herbivores regulate their FACs-hydrolyzing enzyme L-ACY-1 to balance FACs' beneficial vs. detrimental effects remains unknown. To address this question, we compared L-ACY-1 expression in Helicoverpa armigera and Helicoverpa assulta, a pair of closely related sibling species differing mainly in their host range, by the same sets of hostplants, protein to digestible carbohydrate (P:C) ratios, or allelochemical. L-ACY-1 expression remained low/unchanged in H. armigera, but was induced by hot pepper fruits and repressed by cotton bolls in H...