Effects of Dietary Supplementation of Peanut Skin Proanthocyanidins on Growth Performance and Lipid Metabolism of the Juvenile American Eel (Anguilla rostrata).

As a functional feed additive, grape seed proanthocyanidin extract has received a lot of attention due to its biological activity in the health of aquatic animals, but its high cost limits the application of this feed additive in the diet of many fish species. It is thus urgent to develop a new resource of proanthocyanidin extract. We aimed to investigate the effects of dietary supplementation with peanut skin proanthocyanidins (PSPc) on growth parameters and lipid metabolism of juvenile American eel (Anguilla rostrata). Four hundred and fifty juvenile eels were randomly divided into five groups fed diets with five PSPc supplementation levels. The trial lasted for 8 weeks. Dietary PSPc supplementation significantly improved weight gain and feed utilization, and the best growth performance was found in the group fed with 900 mg/kg PSPc. PSPc supplementation significantly affected the crude protein level of whole fish and serum lipid parameters, and the best lipid-lowering effect was found in the fish fed with 900 mg/kg PSPc. Dietary PSPc supplementation increased lipolytic enzyme activities and decrease lipid synthase levels in the liver. The lipid metabolites affected by 900 mg/kg PSPc in the liver were mainly upregulated phosphatidylethanolamine in autophagy, downregulated ceramides in sphingolipid metabolism, upregulated phosphatidylcholine and phosphatidylethanolamine, downregulated 2-lysophosphatidylcholine in glycerophospholipid metabolism, and upregulated phosphatidylcholine in linoleic acid metabolism. In conclusion, an appropriate level of PSPc might effectively improve growth performance and regulate the lipid metabolism of the juvenile American eel, and 900 mg/kg PSPc is recommended in the diet of this fish species.

Grape seed proanthocyanidin extract regulates lipid metabolism of the American eel (Anguilla rostrata).

The current study was aimed to examine the effect of grape seed proanthocyanidin extract (GSPE) on regulating lipid metabolism of American eels. A total of six cement tanks of fish were randomly divided into a control group fed with a commercial diet and a GSPE group fed with a commercial diet supplemented 400 mg/kg GSPE. There were three replicates in each group. Results suggested that GSPE could decrease the levels of total cholesterol, triglycerides, and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and increase the high-density lipoprotein cholesterol level in serum. GSPE might regulate lipid metabolism through upregulating linoleic acid metabolism and arachidonic acid metabolism along with downregulating metabolisms of phenylalanine, tyrosine, and tryptophan biosynthesis and valine, leucine, and isoleucine biosynthesis.

[Control effect of blue light on Bemisia tabaci]. / è“å ‰å¯¹è”¬èœçƒŸç²‰è™±çš„æŽ§åˆ¶ä½œç”¨.

Light is a important way in controlling vegetable pests. In this work, we examined the effects of blue light on Bemisia tabaci on cucumbers, as well as on nutrients, secondary metabolites, and resistance-related enzymes in cucumbers. Results of the direct repellent test showed that blue light had a strong repellent effect on B. tabaci, which increased with light intensity and exposure time. The repellent effect of direct light was stronger than that of transmitted light under the same light intensity and time. The population decline rate of B. tabaci was 77.7% after direct exposure to 1200 lx blue light for 5 min, being 17.4% higher than that of transmitted light. After 2 min exposure to 1750 lx blue light, the population decline rate was 41.2%, which was 10.6% higher than that of transmitted light. Under the condition of pot culture, blue light also had a good repellent effect on B. tabaci on leaves. The corrected population decline rate of B. tabaci reached 88.5% after 5 h exposure to 100 lx blue light. Blue light affected the development of B. tabaci. In addition, blue light significantly increased the contents of soluble sugar, free protein, total phenols and flavonoids in cucumber leaves, decreased the content of proline. The contents of trans-ß-farnesene, trans-2-hexenal, cis-4-heptanal, trans-ß-ocilene, D-carvone, longifolene and 3-carene, and the activities of peroxidase, catalase, superoxide dismutase, ascorbate peroxidase were significantly increased. The results suggested that blue light could drive off B. tabaci and influence the resistance of cucumber. 100 lx blue light had a good control effect on B. tabaci.

Erratum: Relationship between gene expression and the accumulation of catechin during spring and autumn in tea plants (Camellia sinensis L.).

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1038/hortres.2015.11.][This corrects the article DOI: 10.1038/hortres.2015.11.].

Relationship between gene expression and the accumulation of catechin during spring and autumn in tea plants (Camellia sinensis L.).

The tea plant (Camellia sinensis L.) is an important commercial crop with remarkably high catechin concentrations. Tea is popular worldwide given the plant's health benefits. Catechins are the main astringent substance in tea and are synthesized mainly via the phenylpropanoid pathway. In this study, eight cultivars of tea plants harvested both in spring and autumn were used to investigate differences in catechin concentrations by using high-performance liquid chromatography. The expression levels of genes associated with catechin biosynthesis were investigated using reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction. The results indicated that the total catechin (TC) concentrations were significantly higher in tea plants harvested in autumn than in those harvested in spring, based on higher concentrations of epigallocatechin (EGC) in autumn tea (P<0.01). The expression of the genes phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL), flavanone 3-hydroxylase (F3H), flavonoid 3',5'-hydroxylase (F3'5'H), dihydroflavonol 4-reductase (DFR), and anthocyanidin synthase (ANS) is closely related to the TC content of tea plants in both spring and autumn. Positive correlations between PAL, cinnamate 4-hydroxylase (C4H), F3H, and DFR expression and EGC accumulation in autumn tea were identified, with correlation coefficients of 0.710, 0.763, 0.884, and 0.707, respectively. A negative correlation between ANS expression level and EGC concentrations in tea plants harvested in spring was noted (r=-0.732). Additionally, negative correlations between F3H and ANS expression levels and the catechin content were identified in spring tea, whereas the correlations were positive in autumn tea. Significant differences in the F3H and ANS expression levels between spring and autumn tea indicate that F3H and ANS are potentially key genes affecting catechin accumulation in tea plants.

Comparative transcriptome analysis of eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) and turkey berry (Solanum torvum Sw.): phylogenomics and disease resistance analysis.

BACKGROUND: Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) and turkey berry (S. torvum Sw.), a wild ally of eggplant with promising multi-disease resistance traits, are of great economic, medicinal and genetic importance, but genomic resources for these species are lacking. In the present study, we sequenced the transcriptomes of eggplant and turkey berry to accelerate research on these two non-model species. RESULTS: We built comprehensive, high-quality de novo transcriptome assemblies of the two Leptostemonum clade Solanum species from short-read RNA-Sequencing data. We obtained 34,174 unigenes for eggplant and 38,185 unigenes for turkey berry. Functional annotations based on sequence similarity to known plant datasets revealed a distribution of functional categories for both species very similar to that of tomato. Comparison of eggplant, turkey berry and another 11 plant proteomes resulted in 276 high-confidence single-copy orthologous groups, reasonable phylogenetic tree inferences and reliable divergence time estimations. From these data, it appears that eggplant and its wild Leptostemonum clade relative turkey berry split from each other in the late Miocene, ~6.66 million years ago, and that Leptostemonum split from the Potatoe clade in the middle Miocene, ~15.75 million years ago. Furthermore, 621 and 815 plant resistance genes were identified in eggplant and turkey berry respectively, indicating the variation of disease resistance genes between them. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides a comprehensive transcriptome resource for two Leptostemonum clade Solanum species and insight into their evolutionary history and biological characteristics. These resources establish a foundation for further investigations of eggplant biology and for agricultural improvement of this important vegetable. More generally, we show that RNA-Seq is a fast, reliable and cost-effective method for assessing genome evolution in non-model species.

Identification of differentially expressed genes in cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) root under waterlogging stress by digital gene expression profile.

High-throughput tag-sequencing (Tag-seq) analysis based on the Solexa Genome Analyzer platform was applied to analyze the gene expression profiling of cucumber plant at 5 time points over a 24h period of waterlogging treatment. Approximately 5.8 million total clean sequence tags per library were obtained with 143013 distinct clean tag sequences. Approximately 23.69%-29.61% of the distinct clean tags were mapped unambiguously to the unigene database, and 53.78%-60.66% of the distinct clean tags were mapped to the cucumber genome database. Analysis of the differentially expressed genes revealed that most of the genes were down-regulated in the waterlogging stages, and the differentially expressed genes mainly linked to carbon metabolism, photosynthesis, reactive oxygen species generation/scavenging, and hormone synthesis/signaling. Finally, quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction using nine genes independently verified the tag-mapped results. This present study reveals the comprehensive mechanisms of waterlogging-responsive transcription in cucumber.

[Effects of root exudates from cucumber and squash on fusarium wilt occurrence].

With the root exudates of two cucumber varieties Jinyan 4 (susceptible variety) and Jinchun 4 (resistant variety) and of black seed squash variety as test materials, this paper studied their effects and action mechanisms on the occurrence of Fusarium wilt on Jinyan 4. The results showed that the occurrence of Fusarium wilt was earlier when treated with the root exudates of Jinyan 4, and the infection rate was significantly higher at 15 days after inoculation, but nearly the same as the control at 20 days after inoculation. On the contrary, the infection rate was significantly lower than the control when treated with the root exudates of Jinchun 4. The plant height and fresh mass of Jinyan 4 treated with its own root exudates were lower than those of the control, and the root vigor decreased but conductance increased. No significant effect was observed in the plant height and fresh mass of Jinyan 4 treated with the root exudates of Jinchun 4 and black seed squash. It could be concluded that the root exudates of susceptible cucumber variety stimulated the growth of Fusarium oxysporum pathogen, while those of resistance cucumber variety and black seed squash were in adverse.