1. Highly palatable and nutritious meat products can be produced through dietary interventions. Previous studies have shown that forage feeding has a significant impact on the growth performance and nutrition of cattle in various regions, but whether the same effects can be induced in geese remains unclear. 2. Three hundred and sixty Yangzhou goslings were divided according to body weight at 29 d old, assigned to one of 4 treatments and raised in separate pens. The treatments applied were (A) grazing, (B) grazing, grain supplemental diet (64 to 70 d), (C) grazing, grain supplemental diet and (D) confined. 3. Eviscerated carcass yield was lower in the grazing treatment. Protein content and muscle collagen in both the breast and thigh muscles were significantly higher in the grazing treatment than the confined, while fat content exhibited the opposite tendency. Those fed on grass and supplementary grain had a higher Mg and Cu content in breast muscle. 4. Geese will grow to their full potential when they are allowed to consume grass from pasture supplemented with grain, protein, collagen, Mg and Cu content was greater to a degree, which suggests this feeding regime is an ideal model for goose production.

Metagenomic binning enables the in-depth characterization of microorganisms. To improve the resolution and efficiency of metagenomic binning, BASALT (Binning Across a Series of AssembLies Toolkit), a novel binning toolkit was present in this study, which recovers, compares and optimizes metagenomic assembled genomes (MAGs) across a series of assemblies from short-read, long-read or hybrid strategies. BASALT incorporates self-designed algorithms which automates the separation of redundant bins, elongate and refine best bins and improve contiguity. Evaluation using Critical Assessment of Metagenome Interpretation (CAMI) datasets at low (132 genomes) and medium (596 genomes) complexities revealed that BASALT auto-binning gained up to 10 times of shared MAGs with better quality when pairwise comparing to DASTool, VAMB and metaWRAP, resulting in up to 51% more MAGs obtained than other binners. Using BASALT, a case-study analysis of a Salt Lake sediment microbial community from northwest arid region of China was performed, resulting in 426 non-redundant MAGs, including 352 bacterial and 69 archaeal MAGs which could not be assigned to any known species from GTDB (ANI < 95%). In addition, two Lokiarchaeotal MAGs that belong to superphylum Asgardarchaeota were observed from Salt Lake sediment samples. This is the first time that candidate species from phylum Lokiarchaeota was found in the arid and deep-inland environment, filling the current knowledge gap of earth microbiome. Overall, BASALT is proven to be a robust toolkit for metagenomic binning, and more importantly, expand the Tree of Life.

Objective To investigate the clinical characteristics, imaging changes and early diagnostic methods of neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus (NPSLE). Methods Thirty-five SLE patients, of which 16 had overt neuropsychiatric symptoms, underwent examination for multiple autoantibodies, including anti-double-stranded DNA (anti-dsDNA) antibody, anti-nucleosome antibody, anti-cardiac-phospholipid antibody (aCL)-IgG, aCL-IgM, anti-β2-glycoprotein I antibody and anti-ribosomal P antibody, and the SLEDAI score of every patient was recorded. All patients further received neuropsychological tests, including the Mini-Mental State Examination, the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale and the Self-Rating Depression Scale. Imaging examination using 3D arterial spin labeling was performed on 3.0 T MRI scanners. After processing the 3D arterial spin labeling image, the cerebral blood flow map was obtained and the cerebral blood flow value was calculated. Results The values of anti-dsDNA, anti-nucleosome antibody, aCL-IgG and anti-β2-glycoprotein I antibodies were significantly higher in the NPSLE group than those in the SLE group. The SLEDAI scores of the NPSLE group were significantly higher than those of the SLE group. There were no significant differences between the NPSLE group and the SLE group in the directional ability, memory, attention, numeracy, recall ability or language ability scores on the Mini-Mental State Examination scale. Furthermore, there were no symptoms of anxiety or depression in any of the patients, according to the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale and Self-Rating Depression Scale. In the 35 patients with SLE, decreases in blood perfusion were seen in some areas, and were unilateral and asymmetrically distributed. There was obvious asymmetry between sides in areas including the frontal lobe, temporal lobe, parietal lobe and occipital lobe. The incidence of perfusion decreases in frontal lobe in the NPSLE group was significantly higher than in the SLE group. Conclusion Neurological lesions in SLE patients can be detected by arterial spin labeling. Cerebral blood flow abnormalities may be helpful for the early diagnosis of neurological lesions in NPSLE.

1. The aim of this study was to identify the active control area of the duck retinoic acid-inducible gene I (duRIG-I) core promoter, to predict the binding sites of transcription factors and to provide a theoretical basis for the study of duRIG-I function and mechanism of regulation. 2. The promoter region of duRIG-I was obtained from Ensembl; the CpG island in the duRIG-I promoter was predicted online; and the methylation status of the duRIG-I promoter was detected by the bisulphite sequencing PCR method. 3. There was an obvious CpG island in the duRIG-I promoter, with a total of 44 CG dinucleotides. However, the level of methylation was hypomethylation (0.2%). 4. The core transcriptional regulatory region was identified, localised between -301 and ~+14 bp, where multiple transcription factor binding sites including IRF1, RXRβ, AP-2αA, RAP1, NF-1 and SP1 motifs were identified that significantly enhanced RIG-I promoter activity.

1. Albumin (ALB) is a serum protein most highly expressed in liver and regarded as an effective indicator for liver pathologies. The objectives of this study were to determine the expression of duck ALB gene (duALB) in various non-hepatic tissues and identify the potential cis-regulatory elements in the promoter. 2. A model was established to assess duALB promoter activity in different cell lines by construction of a duALB promoter-driven GFP (Green Fluorescent Protein)-expressing vector, which exhibited high expression activity in liver-derived cells and lower expression in other cells. Through the firefly luciferase reporter gene driven by a series of constructs carrying progressive deletions, the core transcriptional regulatory region within the duALB promoter was identified. Mutations in candidate-binding sites were made by site-directed mutagenesis. 3. The core transcriptional regulatory region was located in the -190/-51 bp region. This region contains three potential transcription factor-binding sites, one each for hepatocyte nuclear factor (HNF-3β) (-158/-149), CCAAT/Enhancer-binding protein element (C/EBPα) (-119/-107) and nuclear factor-1 (HNF-1) (-67/-57). Site-directed mutagenesis of HNF-1 and C/EBPα-binding sites resulted in a significant reduction in duALB promoter activity. Two potential cis-regulatory elements (C/EBPα and HNF-1) were responsible for its transcriptional activity in liver-derived cells. 4. These findings contribute to the further understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of ALB gene regulation and the use of tissue-specific gene promoters to regulate tissue-specific expression of exogenous genes in vivo.