Project description:The genetic foundation of chicken tail feather color is not very well studied to date, though that of body feather color is extensively explored. In the present study, we used a synthetic chicken dwarf line (DW), which was originated from the hybrids between a black tail chicken breed, Rhode Island Red (RIR) and a white tail breed, Dwarf Layer (DL), to understand the genetic rules of the white/black tail color. The DW line still contain the individuals with black or white tails, even if the body feather are predominantly red, after more than ten generation of self-crossing and being selected for the body feather color. We firstly performed four crosses using the DW line chickens including black tail male to female, reciprocal crosses between the black and white, and white male to female to elucidate the inheritance pattern of the white/black tail. We found that (i) the white/black tail feather colors are independent of body feather color and (ii) the phenotype are autosomal simple trait and (iii) the white are dominant to the black in the DW lines. Furtherly, we performed a genome-wide association (GWA) analysis to determine the candidate genomic regions underlying the tail feather color by using black tail chickens from the RIR and DW chickens and white individuals from DW lines.
Project description:Snakebite envenoming is a neglected tropical disease that kills and maims hundreds of thousands annually. Naja nigricollis, the black-necked spitting cobra, has a cytotoxin-rich venom that is able to cause severe dermonecrosis and is not efficiently neutralized by current antivenoms. Here, we introduce an organotypic model of human skin to study the effects of exposure to N. nigricollis venom on human cells and compare it to the currently available in vivo mouse model. Histologically, the organotypic model simulates the severe necrotic lesions observed in mice. Proteomically, we show that among widespread global changes in protein abundance, many pathways involved in skin homeostasis and wound healing are specifically affected in both models. These results are the first to suggest that this organotypic model can simulate dermonecrosis caused by N. nigricollis venom and could thus be used to bridge the gap between in vitro and animal-based experiments for the study of the venom-induced cytotoxicity. This is an initial step towards replacing such animal-based experiments, which are associated with pain and tissue damage. The organotypic model may also find utility in evaluating the efficacy of new therapeutics against the severe and long-lasting consequences of snakebite envenoming in humans.
Project description:Illumina high-throughput sequencing was used to analyse the intestinal bacteria of these two species during different wintering periods at Shengjin Lake. We tested whether contact time enhances the trans-species spread of gut bacteria. Our results indicate that although intestinal microflora of hooded crane and the bean goose were different, direct or indirect contact in the mixed-species flock caused the spread of gut bacteria trans-species, and a very high proportion of common pathogens among these two hosts.
Project description:In this study, we used the illumina high throughput sequencing approach (Sequencing-By-Synthesis, or SBS) to develop the sequence resource of black pepper. To identify micro RNAs functioning in stress response of the black pepper plant, small RNA libraries were prepared from the leaf and root of Phytophthora capsici infected plants, leaves from drought stressed and control plants.
Project description:The effectiveness of the novel electrospray ionisation - liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (ESI-LC-MS) data de-noising technique, CRANE, is demonstrated by denoising the MS1 and all the MS2 windows of the multicentre, data-independent acquisi-tion (DIA) MS dataset from Navarro, et al. (2016).