Response of ecosystem CO2 fluxes to grazing intensities - a five-year experiment in the Hulunber meadow steppe of China.

Grazing is the primary land use in the Hulunber meadow steppe. However, the quantitative effects of grazing on ecosystem carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes in this zone remain unclear. A controlled experiment was conducted from 2010 to 2014 to study the effects of six stocking rates on CO2 flux, and the results showed that there were significant differences in CO2 fluxes by year, treatment, and month. The effects of light and intermediate grazing remained relatively constant with grazing year, whereas the effects of heavy grazing increased substantially with grazing duration. CO2 flux significantly decreased with increasing grazing intensity and duration, and it was significantly positively correlated with rainfall, soil moisture (SM), the carbon to nitrogen ratio (C/N ratio), soil available phosphorus (SAP), soil NH4+-N, soil NO3-N, aboveground biomass (AGB), coverage, height, and litter and negatively correlated with air temperature, total soil N (TN) and microbial biomass N (MBN). A correspondence analysis showed that the main factors influencing changes in CO2 emissions under grazing were AGB, height, coverage, SM, NH4+-N and NO3-N. Increased rainfall and reduced grazing resulted in greater CO2 emissions. Our study provides important information to improve our understanding of the role of livestock grazing in GHG emissions.

Regulation of insulin-like growth factor binding protein-5 mRNA abundance in rat intestinal smooth muscle.

IGF-I increases abundance of IGFBP-5 mRNA in rat intestinal smooth muscle cells (RISM), and IGFBP-5 protein in RISM conditioned media. The translational blocker, cycloheximide, decreased the abundance of IGFBP-5 mRNA to undetectable levels, suggesting that IGFBP-5 mRNA integrity is linked to protein synthesis. We studied the mechanism of IGF-I's effect on IGFBP-5 mRNA, and the role of cytoplasmic proteins in modulating IGFBP-5 mRNA abundance. Anisomycin, emetine, and puromycin abolished IGFBP-5 mRNA as seen with cycloheximide. Cycloheximide had a dose- and time-dependent effect on IGFBP-5 mRNA. IGF-I increased IGFBP-5 nuclear transcripts by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), suggesting that IGF-I acts at least partially by increasing IGFBP-5 mRNA transcription. Protein synthesis inhibitors did not affect IGFBP-5 nuclear transcripts, therefore, they affect only mature mRNA. The IGFBP-5 mRNA 3' and 5' UTRs were cloned and their sequences searched for adenosine-uridine rich elements (AUREs), elements shown to regulate RNA stability. RNA mobility gel shift assay showed two protein activities that bind to nt 922 to 2076 of the 3' UTR, a region that contains an AURE. One protein activity (BA2) was decreased in cytoplasmic extracts from cycloheximide-treated RISM. These data demonstrate that IGFBP-5 mRNA integrity is dependent on protein synthesis. The 3' UTR of IGFBP-5 contains elements shown to bind proteins important for RNA stability regulation. This region binds RISM cytoplasmic proteins, and may mediate the dramatic effect of cycloheximide on IGFBP-5 abundance. RNA-protein interactions may be important to IGFBP-5 mRNA stability and ultimately, to IGFBP-5 actions.