The lateral organ boundary domain (LBD) gene is a plant-specific transcription factor that plays a crucial role in plant growth and development, including the development of lateral vegetative organs such as leaf and root development, as well as floral organs such as sepal, petal, and pollen development. Passion fruit is a tropical fruit with important agricultural, economic and ornamental value. However, there is no systematic research report available on the LBD gene family of passion fruit. In this study, a genome-wide analysis of passion fruit LBD genes identified 33 PeLBDs that were unevenly distributed across nine chromosomes. According to phylogenetic and gene structure analysis, PeLBDs were divided into two categories: Class I (27) and Class II (6). Homologous protein modeling results showed that the gene members of the two subfamilies were structurally and functionally similar. Cis-acting element and target gene prediction analysis suggested that PeLBDs might participate in various biological processes by regulating diverse target genes involved in growth and development, metabolism, hormones and stress response. Collinearity analysis indicated that the expansion of the PeLBD gene family likely took place mainly by segmental duplication, and some duplicated gene pairs such as PeLBD13/15 might show functional redundancy, while most duplicated gene pairs such as PeLBD8/12 showed different expression profiles indicating their functional diversification. After filtering low expressed genes, all Class Id PeLBDs were more highly expressed during pollen development. At the same, all Class Ic and many other PeLBDs were relatively highly expressed during ovule development, similar with their homologous LBD genes in Arabidopsis, indicating their potential regulatory roles in reproductive tissue development in passion fruit. PeLBDs that were highly expressed in floral tissues were also expressed at a higher level in tendrils with some differences, indicating the close relationships of tendrils to floral tissues. Some genes such as PeLBD23/25 might be simultaneously related to floral development and leaf early formation in passion fruit, while other PeLBDs showed a strong tissue-specific expression. For example, PeLBD17/27/29 were specifically expressed in floral tissues, while PeLBD11 were only highly expressed in fruit, suggesting their specific function in the development of certain tissues. A qRT-PCR was conducted to verify the expression levels of six PeLBDs in different tissues. Our analysis provides a basis for the functional analysis of LBD genes and new insights into their regulatory roles in floral and vegetative tissue development.

Crassulacean acid metabolism photosynthesis pathway highlights the possible of sustainable production on margin agricultural land and crop improvement with higher water use efficiency by engineering CAM into C3 crops. A comprehensive view of the regulatory network of CAM photosynthesis is prerequisite for utilization CAM pathway. Diverse factors were involved in the regulation but many of them remain unexplained. Alternative splicing (AS) is a common and crucial posttranscriptional mechanism which get deep involved in responding to biotic and abiotic stresses. Using all the available RNA-seq data of pineapple, which is the most economic valuable CAM crops with abundant omics resource, we re-assembled a reference transcriptome and used to perform alternative splicing analysis associated with crassulacean acid metabolism. The results shown that AS events were prevalent in pineapple. CAM core genes, circadian clock genes, stomatal movement and starch metabolism related genes were found to be significantly differentially alternative spliced between photosynthesis and non-photosynthesis tissues across time course. Isoform switch events were found in many DAS genes, which indicated the sensitivity of AS across the CAM processes in pineapple. The dataset described here also contributed to identify promising candidate genes such as nAco00160 involved in CAM photosynthesis. Our results suggested that AS play an important regulatory role in CAM photosynthesis in pineapple and would help to gain a more systematic understanding about the regulatory networks of CAM photosynthesis.

Alniphyllum fortunei is a subtropical tree species, a large deciduous tree with a tall and straight trunk, which is an excellent fast-growing and broad-leaved tree species with a wide range of uses we resequenced complete chloroplast (cp) genome of A. fortunei from Fujian, China. The whole genome was 154,166 bp in length, consisting of a pair of inverted repeats (IR 26,658 bp), a large single-copy region (LSC 82,438 bp), and a small single-copy region (SSC 18,367 bp). The complete genome contained 139 genes, including 89 protein-coding genes, 40 tRNA, and 8 rRNA genes. The phylogenetic analyses based on the complete chloroplast genome sequence provided solid evidence that A. fortunei has a close relationship with A. pterospermum and Bruinsmia polysperma.

Accumulating evidence from recent studies links the gut microbiota to obesity, and microbiome therapy has been examined as a treatment. Clostridium butyricum (C. butyricum), an intestinal symbiont, protects the host from a range of diseases. Studies have shown a negative correlation between the relative abundance of C. butyricum and a predisposition for obesity. However, the physiological function and material basis of C. butyricum for obesity are unclear. Here, five C. butyricum isolates were administered to mice on a high-fat diet (HFD) to determine their anti-obesity effects. All isolates suppressed the formation and inflammation of subcutaneous fat, and the two effective strains considerably reduced weight gain and ameliorated dyslipidemia, hepatic steatosis, and inflammation. These positive effects were not achieved by increasing the concentration of intestinal butyrate, and the effective strains could not be replaced by sodium butyrate (NaB). We also discovered that oral supplementation with the two most effective strains changed the metabolism of tryptophan and purine and altered the composition of the gut microbiota. In summary, C. butyricum improved the metabolic phenotypes under the HFD by controlling the composition of the gut microbiota and modulating intestinal metabolites, thereby demonstrating its ability to fight obesity and providing a theoretical foundation for microbial preparations production.