For green production of iron ore sintering, it is significant to substitute fossil fuels by biomass which is a kind of clean and renewable energy. In this paper, three kinds of biomass fuels such as charcoal, charred-straw and molded-sawdust were studied as sintering fuels. The results show that, with the proportion of biomass replacing coke breeze increasing, the vertical sintering speed raises, but the yield and the tumble index of sinter decrease, so the replacement proportion should be appropriate for satisfying the productivity and the quality of sinter. The suitable replacing proportions of charcoal, charred-straw and molded-sawdust are 40%, 20% and 15% respectively, in which the emission of COx can be decreased by 18.65%, 7.19% and 5.39%, SOx by 38.15%, 31.79% and 28.90%, NOx by 26.76%, 18.31% and 15.49% respectively.

Gaotian, one typical conservative village in rural area of South China, is differentiated from other adjacent village for its longevity and health situation of residents. To ascertain the difference of intestinal microbial community between Gaotian and other region, high-throughput sequencing and systematical bioinformation analyses was adopted to compare 21 samples in long life group with 28 in control group. The α diversity showed that the diversity of species of intestinal flora of Gaotian villagers was higher than that of control group, while the β diversity showed that the similarity of intestinal flora for Gaotian residents was also much higher than that of control group. OTU cluster analysis and Venn diagram showed that the intestinal microbial community of Gaotian villagers is different from that of control group. To quantitatively compare the main flora constitution in all samples, real-time PCR was performed, and the results showed that the biomass of Enterococcus, Lactobacillus, Enterobacteriaceae, Clostridium perfringens, and Bacteroides of Gaotian villages is generally significantly higher than that of control group. Remarkably, some special species, i.e., Methanobacterium, Butyricimonas, Deinococcus, and Streptococcaceae, have been found in Gaotian villagers. Overall, this study lays a preparatory basis for exploration of the resources of special species from healthy and long-living elderly Gaotian villagers and for proposal of a hypothesis, namely, the diversity in intestinal flora of Gaotian might contribute to the longevity and health of local residents. Further study should be focused on screening and functional evaluation of the special species in the long-life residents.

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L-tryptophan (Trp) is widely used in food and feed enforcement to play an important role in biological processes. Various metabolites of Trp perform its potent function. The indole pyruvate pathway is one of the main pathways of Trp metabolism in the gut microbiota, providing numerous indole-derivatives, which can modulate intestinal homeostasis and mucosal immunity by activating the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) signaling pathway. In this study, we constructed an IL4I1-overexpressed 293T cell line and found that IL4I1 can catalyze Trp to produce indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) and indole-3-carboxaldehyde (IAld). Moreover, both IAA and IAld are accumulated in dendritic cells (DCs) and can stimulate the expression of CYP1A1. Our results demonstrate the existence of the indole pyruvate pathway in host cells with IL4I1 as the key enzyme. The IL4I1-mediated Trp metabolism implies the role of dietary impact on immunity.