Metagenomic insights into the rumen epithelial integrity responses to the vitamin B1 supplement under high-concentrate diets treatments.

Subacute ruminal acidosis (SARA) becomes the most common nutritional metabolic disease in high-yielding dairy cows and later fatting beef cattle because of the increasing consumption of high-concentrate diets in modern feeding patterns. Our previous research found a certain piece of evidence that adding 180 mg thiamine/kg DMI could increase the rumen pH and regulate the structure of the rumen microbial community in vivo. However, there is still limited experimental data on the effects of SARA on thiamine status, the damage to the structure of rumen epithelial cells, and the underlying mechanism of the epithelium alterations. For this purpose, a total of 18 Angus bulls (average 22.0-months-old) with an average live weight of 567.6 ± 27.4 kg were randomly allocated into a control treatment (CON), a high-concentrate diet treatment (HC), and a high-concentrate diet with the vitamin B1 supplement treatment (HCB). All bulls were conducted with a 7-day adjustment period followed by a 60-day-long main feeding procedure. Results indicated that ADFI and ADG significantly decreased in the HC treatment compared with CON (P < 0.05), while significantly increased after the VB1 supplement (P < 0.05). Besides, ruminal acetate content was significantly downregulated while propionate was significantly upregulated under the HC treatment compared with CON (P < 0.05); however, these alterations showed a completely inverse regulatory effect on the VB1 supplement compared with HC (P < 0.05). These changes causatively induced a significant decrease in the A/P ratio in the HC treatment compared with CON and HCB treatments (P < 0.05). Bacterial communities in the HC treatment could be separated from those in CON through PCoA axes 1 and 2. Meanwhile, the VB1 supplement significantly altered the bacterial communities compared with the HC treatment, except for HCB-3. Furthermore, the HC treatment significantly upregulated the expression of JNK, Bax, Caspase-8, Caspase-3, Caspase-9, and Cyt-C compared with CON, while significantly downregulated the expression of Bcl-2. The VB1 supplement showed a complete converse gene expression compared with HC. In conclusion, the VB1 supplement could effectively attenuate the alterations that occurred when exposed to high-concentrate diets, and help promote production performance through increased fermentability.

Frequency detection of porcine circovirus-like viruses in pigs with porcine respiratory disease.

The emergence of the circular replication-associated protein (Rep) encoding single-stranded (CRESS) DNA viruses in different hosts has been associated with serious diseases, such as porcine diarrhea. The prevalence and pathogenicity of porcine circovirus-like virus (Po-Circo-like virus (PCLV)), a member of CRESS DNA virus, has not been fully illustrated. In order to understand the frequency of PCLV in pigs with respiratory disease, 519 healthy tissues (268 lungs, 201 lymph nodes and 50 hearts) and 380 tissues (212 lungs, 124 lymph nodes and 44 hearts) diagnosed with respiratory disease were collected for analyzing the prevalence of the PCLV infection using the Tag-Man qPCR assay. In addition, the complete genome of 43 PCLV strains were then sequenced, which were subsequently to analyze their characteristics. We found that 31.7 % (285/899) samples were tested positive for PCL virus. It is interesting to note that just 9.6 % (50/519) of the healthy samples were tested positive for PCLV, 61.8 % (235/380) of the diseased samples were PCLV positive. Analysis of the full genome of 43 PCLV strains showed that the genome of 42 PCLV strains included two distinct stem-loop structures, but the genome of PCLV FJ5-2020 strain contained no stem-loop structures. A phylogenetic tree analysis based on the Rep protein, PCLV could be classified into four genotypes: PCLVa, PCLVb, PCLVc, and PCLVd. In conclusion, this is the first report that the high frequency of PCLV in association in respiratory diseased pigs. PCLV strains were divided into four new genotypes of PCLV.

Chicken TAX1BP1 suppresses type I interferon production via degrading chicken MAVS and facilitates infectious bursal diseases virus replication.

Mammalian TAX1BP1 (TAX1 binding protein 1), originally identified as a partner of the HTLV-1 viral oncoprotein, functions in regulation of cellular cytokine production. TAX1BP1 plays an important signal transduction regulator, specifically modulating innate immune signaling pathways including NF-B and IRF3. The function of TAX1BP1, which regulates the innate immune response in mammals, has been well studied in previous reports, but the role of chicken TAX1BP1 (chTAX1) in IFN regulation and infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) replication is still unclear. In this report, chTAX1 was successfully cloned and sub-inserted into a eukaryotic expression vector. The critical regions of chTAX1, such as LC3 binding motif, ubiquitin binding motif, are highly conserved compared to other organisms. We also found that chTAX1 inhibits IFN expression by promoting degradation of chicken MAVS (chMAVS). In addition, the distribution of chTAX1 altered and translocated to co-localize with both VP1 and VP3 after IBDV infection. Overexpression of chTAX1 promotes IBDV replication and knockdown of chTAX1 by RNA interference suppresses IBDV replication. In summary, our data initially indicate that chTAX1 is a suppressor of IFN expression as well as a promoter of IBDV replication.

Gastrointestinal Development and Microbiota Responses of Geese to Honeycomb Flavonoids Supplementation.

Background: Geese are conventionally considered to be herbivorous, which could also be raised with concentrate feeding diets without green grass because of the similar gastrointestinal tract with other poultry. However, the geese gut microbiota profiles and their interactions with epithelial cells are still of limited study. Flavonoids were well-documented to shape gut microbiota and promote epithelial barrier functions individually or cooperatively with other metabolites. Therefore, in the present study, honeycomb flavonoids (HF) were supplemented to investigate the effects on growth performances, intestinal development, and gut microbiome of geese. Material and Methods: A total of 400 1-day-old male lion-head geese with similar birth weight (82.6 ± 1.4 g) were randomly divided into five treatments: the control treatment (CON) and the HF supplementation treatments, HF was supplemented arithmetically to increase from 0.25 to 1%. Growth performance, carcass performances, and intestines' development parameters were measured to determine the optimum supplement. Junction proteins including ZO-1 and ZO-2 and cecal microbiota were investigated to demonstrate the regulatory effects of HF on both microbiota and intestinal epithelium. Results: Results showed that 0.5% of HF supplement had superior growth performance, carcass performance, and the total parameters of gastrointestinal development to other treatments. Further research showed that tight junction proteins including ZO-1 and ZO-2 significantly up-regulated, while Firmicutes and some probiotics including Clostridiales, Streptococcus, Lachnoclostridium, and Bifidobacterium, remarkably proliferated after HF supplement. In conclusion, HF supplement in concentrate-diet feeding geese effectively increased the growth performances by regulating the gut microbiota to increase the probiotic abundance to promote the nutrient digestibility and fortify the epithelial development and barrier functions to facilitate the nutrient absorption and utilization.