Effects of sorbitol on porcine oocyte maturation and embryo development <i>in vitro</i>

Lin, Tao,Zhang, Jin Yu,Diao, Yun Fei,Kang, Jung Won,Jin, Dong-Il Cambridge University Press 2015 Zygote Vol.23 No.2

<B>Summary</B><P>In the present study, a porcine system was supplemented with sorbitol during <I>in vitro</I> maturation (IVM) or <I>in vitro</I> culture (IVC), and the effects of sorbitol on oocyte maturation and embryonic development following parthenogenetic activation were assessed. Porcine immature oocytes were treated with different concentrations of sorbitol during IVM, and the resultant metaphase II stage oocytes were activated and cultured in porcine zygote medium-3 (PZM-3) for 7 days. No significant difference was observed in cumulus expansion and the nuclear maturation between the control and sorbitol-treated groups, with the exception of the 100 mM group, which showed significantly decreased nuclear maturation and cumulus expansion. There was no significant difference in the intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels between oocytes matured with 10 or 20 mM sorbitol and control groups, but 50 and 100 mM groups had significantly higher ROS levels than other groups. The 20 mM group showed significant increases in intracellular glutathione and subsequent blastocyst formation rates following parthenogenetic activation compared with the other groups. During IVC, supplementation with sorbitol significantly reduced blastocyst formation and increased the apoptotic index compared with the control. The apoptotic index of blastocysts from the sorbitol-treated group for entire culture period was significantly higher than those of the partially sorbitol-exposed groups. Based on these findings, it can be concluded that the addition of a low concentration of sorbitol (20 mM) during IVM of porcine oocytes benefits subsequent blastocyst development and improves embryo quality, whereas sorbitol supplement during IVC has a negative effect on blastocyst formation.</P>

Non-Aflatoxigenicity of Commercial Aspergillus oryzae Strains Due to Genetic Defects Compared to Aflatoxigenic Aspergillus flavus

( Lin Tao ),( Soo Hyun Chung ) 한국미생물 · 생명공학회 2014 Journal of microbiology and biotechnology Vol.24 No.8

Aspergillus oryzae is generally recognized as safe, but it is closely related to A. flavus in morphology and genetic characteristics. In this study, we tested the aflatoxigenicity and genetic analysis of nine commercial A. oryzae strains that were used in Korean soybean fermented products. Cultural and HPLC analyses showed that none of the commercial strains produced detectable amount of aflatoxins. According to the molecular analysis of 17 genes in the aflatoxin (AF) biosynthetic pathway, the commercial strains could be classified into three groups. The group I strains contained all the 17 AF biosynthetic genes tested in this study; the group II strains deleted nine AF biosynthetic genes and possessed eight genes, including aflG, aflI, aflK, aflL, aflM, aflO, aflP, and aflQ; the group III strains only had six AF biosynthetic genes, including aflG, aflI, aflK, aflO, aflP, and aflQ. With the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, the group I A. oryzae strains showed no expression of aflG, aflQ and/or aflM genes, which resulted in the lack of AF-producing ability. Group II and group III strains could not produce AF owing to the deletion of more than half of the AF biosynthetic genes. In addition, the sequence data of polyketide synthase A (pksA) of group I strains of A. oryzae showed that there were three point mutations (two silent mutations and one missense mutation) compared with aflatoxigenic A. flavus used as the positive control in this study.

Luzhong mutton sheep: inbreeding and selection signatures

Lin Tao,Xiaoyun He,Fengyan Wang,Yingjie Zhong,Linxiang Pan,Xiangyu Wang,Shangquan Gan,Ran Di,Ming-xing Chu 한국축산학회 2020 한국축산학회지 Vol.62 No.6

Intense artificial selection has been imposed to Luzhong mutton sheep population in the past years. Improvements on growth and reproductive performance are two breeding goals in the present herd. Although some progresses were phenotypically observed possibly due to inbreeding induced by strong selection in terms of these traits, the genomic evaluation was poorly understood. Therefore, a high-density SNP array was used to characterize the pattern of runs of homozygosity (ROH), estimate inbreeding and inbreeding depressions on early growth performance and litter size based upon ROH, and scan positive selection signatures of recent population. Consequently, a low inbreeding level was observed which had negative effects on litter size, but not on early growth performance. And 160 genes were under selection, of which some were reported to be linked to several traits of sheep including body weight, litter size, carcass and meat quality, milk yield and composition, fiber quality and health, and the top genes were associated with growth (growth hormone [GH]- growth hormone receptor [GHR]- Insulin-like growth factor 1 [IGF1] axis) and litter size (bone morphogenic proteins [BMPs]-associated). The effectiveness of previous breeding measures was highlighted, but purging selection was proposed to alleviate the inbreeding depression on litter size, providing some genomic insights to breeding management of Luzhong mutton sheep.

α-Solanine impairs oocyte maturation and quality by inducing autophagy and apoptosis and changing histone modifications in a pig model

Lin, Tao,Oqani, Reza K.,Lee, Jae Eun,Kang, Jeong Won,Kim, So Yeon,Cho, Eun Seok,Jeong, Yong Dae,Baek, Jun Jong,Jin, Dong Il Elsevier 2018 Reproductive toxicology Vol.75 No.-

<P><B>Abstract</B></P> <P>In this study, we used a pig model to investigate the effects of α-solanine (a natural toxin found mainly in potato sprouts) on oocyte maturation, quality and subsequent embryonic development. We found that α-solanine (10 μM) disturbed meiotic resumption and increased abnormal spindle formation and altered the cortical granule (CG) distribution compared with the untreated group. α-Solanine triggered autophagy and apoptosis by increasing the expressions of autophagy-related genes (<I>LC3</I>, <I>ATG7</I>, and <I>LAMP2</I>) and apoptotic related genes (<I>BAX</I> and <I>CASP3</I>). Exposure of porcine oocytes to α-solanine significantly increased the levels of H3K36me3 and H3K27me3. Moreover, α-solanine significantly reduced the cleavage and blastocyst formation rates, decreased the total and inner cell mass cells numbers, and increased apoptosis in these porcine embryos. Taken together, our data indicate that α-solanine toxically impairs oocyte maturation and quality by triggering autophagy/apoptosis and facilitating epigenetic modifications. Furthermore, α-solanine suppressed subsequent embryonic development and reduced embryo quality.</P> <P><B>Highlights</B></P> <P> <UL> <LI> During porcine IVM system, α-solanine disturbed meiotic resumption, induced morphological changes and death of oocytes. </LI> <LI> α-solanine increased the rates of abnormal spindle formation and cortical granule distribution. </LI> <LI> α-solanine triggered autophagy, apoptosis and ROS generation in pig oocytes. </LI> <LI> α-solanine changed the levels of H3K36me3 and H3K27me3 in pig oocytes. </LI> <LI> α-solanine exposure during IVM reduced the subsequent embryonic development and quality. </LI> </UL> </P>

Genetic Defects in Commercial Strains of Asepergillus oryzae Compared to Aflatoxigenic Aspergillus flavus

Lin Tao,Sun Min Yang,Myung Jae Nam,Soo Hyun Chung 한국식품영양과학회 2012 한국식품영양과학회 학술대회발표집 Vol.2012 No.10

Factors Influencing the Efficiency of In Vitro Embryo Production in the Pig

Lin, Tao,Lee, Jae Eun,Shin, Hyun Young,Oqani, Reza K.,Jin, Dong Il The Korean Society of Animal Reproduction 2015 Reproductive & developmental biology Vol.39 No.2

Pigs are considered an ideal source of human disease model due to their physiological similarities to humans. However, the low efficiency of in vitro embryo production (IVP) is still a major barrier in the production of pig offspring with gene manipulation. Despite ongoing advances in the associated technologies, the developmental capacity of IVP pig embryos is still lower than that of their in vivo counterparts, as well as IVP embryos of other species (e.g., cattle and mice). The efficiency of IVP can be influenced by many factors that affect various critical steps in the process. The previous relevant reviews have focused on the in vitro maturation system, in vitro culture conditions, in vitro fertilization medium, issues with polyspermy, the utilized technologies, etc. In this review, we concentrate on factors that have not been fully detailed in prior reviews, such as the oocyte morphology, oocyte recovery methods, denuding procedures, first polar body morphology and embryo quality.

Delayed blastocyst formation or an extra day culture increases apoptosis in pig blastocysts

Lin, Tao,Lee, Jae Eun,Oqani, Reza K.,Kim, So Yeon,Cho, Eun Seok,Jeong, Yong Dae,Baek, Jun Jong,Jin, Dong Il Elsevier 2017 Animal reproduction science Vol.185 No.-

<P><B>Abstract</B></P> <P>In the present study, the timing was examined of blastocyst collection/formation or of how the duration of post-blastulation culture affected the quality and developmental competence of <I>in vitro</I>-produced pig parthenogenetic embryos. The earliest apoptotic signals were observed at the morula stage while the earliest cytoplasmic fragmentation was observed before the 4- to 8-cell stage of embryo development. Nuclear condensation was detected in morulae and blastocysts, but not all condensed nuclei were positive for the apoptotic signal (TUNEL staining). The mean blastocyst diameter increased with delayed blastocyst collection or extended post-blastulation culture, but decreased with delayed blastocyst formation. Delayed blastocyst collection/formation or an additional day of post-blastulation culture increased the frequencies of apoptosis, condensed nuclei, and low quality blastocysts (those showing a nuclear destruction that negated counting of the nuclei); increased the expression of the pro-apoptotic <I>BAX</I> gene; and reduced the ratio of ICM (inner cell mass) cells to TE (trophectoderm) cells. In addition, delayed blastocyst formation decreased <I>POU5F1</I> gene expression. These results suggest that a delay in blastocyst collection/formation or an additional day of culture could increase the incidence of apoptosis, decrease the ICM:TE cell ratio, and influence the gene expression and diameter of blastocysts derived from <I>in vitro</I>-produced pig embryos. These findings provide a useful reference for improving the quality of <I>in vitro</I>-produced embryos.</P>

Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) Stress and Unfolded Protein Response (UPR) in Mammalian Oocyte Maturation and Preimplantation Embryo Development

Lin, Tao,Lee, Jae Eun,Kang, Jung Won,Shin, Hyeon Yeong,Lee, Ju Bin,Jin, Dong Il MDPI 2019 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR SCIENCES Vol.20 No.2

<P>Mammalian oocytes and early embryos derived from in vitro production are highly susceptible to a variety of cellular stresses. During oocyte maturation and preimplantation embryo development, functional proteins must be folded properly in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) to maintain oocyte and embryo development. However, some adverse factors negatively impact ER functions and protein synthesis, resulting in the activation of ER stress and unfolded protein response (UPR) signaling pathways. ER stress and UPR signaling have been identified in mammalian oocytes and embryos produced in vitro, suggesting that modulation of ER stress and UPR signaling play very important roles in oocyte maturation and the development of preimplantation embryos. In this review, we briefly describe the current state of knowledge regarding ER stress, UPR signaling pathways, and their roles and mechanisms in mammalian (excluding human) oocyte maturation and preimplantation embryo development.</P>

A Novel Identification Approach for Palm Bio-impedance Spectroscopy

Lintao Lv,Sheng Wang,Shiqi Huang,Xinhong Hei,Yuxiang Yang 대한전기학회 2019 Journal of Electrical Engineering & Technology Vol.14 No.5

Aiming at the properties of the palm bio-impedance spectroscopy (PBIS) data and shortage of the existing algorithms, this paper proposed a kind of the PBIS identification method based on immune clone. This method mainly consisted of three parts, which are data normalization, feature selection and matching. The PBIS algorithm constructed a new classifier based on the immune clone selection algorithm (ICSA) and the hidden space support vector machine (HSSVM), called the ICSA-HSSVM. It was compared with other classifiers such as Euclidean distance, cosine distance and support vector machine (SVM). The experimental results show that the proposed classification method can achieve more than 95% accuracy in identity recognition. The PBIS biometric identification tech depends on the human body inherent characteristics to carry out the status identification so as to overcome the drawbacks of traditional information safety tech status identification. The main advantages of PBIS algorithm include four aspects. The first is the uniqueness, universality, stability, easy collection, and it is basically not being subject to the influence of pathological changes in the human body positions. The second is not sensitive to the environment and the excellent recognition performance can be obtained through the method easily. The three is high stability and uniqueness when it is served as the biometric potentiality, being in agreement with biometric identification requirements. (4) The four is able to resist against counterfeiting attacks effectively. The method proposed in this paper is of great theoretical and practical values in the fields of national public security, internet information security, military communication security, micro-blog micro-message public opinion supervision.

Topical Influence Analysis Algorithm based on Information Propagation in Microblogs

LinTao Lv,QinQin Yuan 보안공학연구지원센터 2016 International Journal of Database Theory and Appli Vol.9 No.1

With the development and popularization of the Internet, the different microblog topics are disscussed everyday, so the microblog can product a large number of various topics,which can reflect the influence of different users in a given topic. In the microblog topics,the key users of microblog topics are found by discovering the influential sensitive topics and calculating the influence value of the user,which are the focus of attention in the fields of microblog public opinion supervision and safety management. In order to accurately measure the influencers in the given topic and to calculate the user influence value, the thesis proposes the method of constructing the propagation network which is based on attention and forward relationship between users, and then proposes TDN-If algorithm by using PageRank algorithm. When we calculate the transition probability in propagation network by using the TDN-If algorithm, the information propagation is considered to measure influencers. This method can resolve the defects of discovering the user's influence by only using followers of this single indicator in the current microblog topics. The experimental results show that the TDN-If algorithm has important theoretical and practical value, which is better than TwitterRank algorithm and other influential individuals found algorithm. Thus, the method proposed in this paper can not only effectively solve the problem about discovering and persuading the key users in the sensitive topics who have influences and have the unique insights on the significant events, for example, which can provide the strong guarantee for the governments in the fight against terrorism, but also provide the important theory and method for the complex network community discovery, microblog public opinion supervision , microblog safety management and so on.