Effects of age on intestinal phosphate transport and biochemical values of broiler chickens

Li, Jianhui,Yuan, Jianmin,Miao, Zhiqiang,Guo, Yuming Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 2017 Animal Bioscience Vol.30 No.2

Objective: The objective of this experiment was to characterize the mRNA expression profile of type IIb sodium-inorganic phosphate cotransporter (NaPi-IIb) and the biochemical values of serum alkaline phosphatase (AKP), calcium, inorganic phosphorus, tibial ash and minerals of broiler chickens with aging. Methods: A total of 56 one-day-old Arbor Acres male broiler chickens were used. Broiler chickens were weighed and samples were collected weekly from day 1. Results: The result showed that before the growth inflection point, ash, calcium, and phosphorus content in the tibia of broiler chickens increased with growth (before 3 weeks of age), although there were no significant differences in chicks at different ages in the later period of the experiment and weight gain rate was relatively slow at this stage (4 to 6 weeks). NaPi-IIb gene expression in the small intestine in the early growth stage was higher than that in the later growth stage. Expression of calbindin and the vitamin D receptor protein in the intestinal mucosa increased with age in the duodenum and jejunum. Serum AKP activity first increased and subsequently decreased after peaking at 1 week of age, but there was no significant difference after 3 weeks of age. Conclusion: These results show that compared with the early growth stage, the weight-gain rate of broiler chickens in the late growth stage gradually decreased with gradual tibia maturation, along with weaker positive transport of phosphorus in the intestine and reinforced re-absorption of phosphorus in the kidney, which might be the reason that phosphorus requirement in the late growth stage was decreased.

Circumnavigation of a Moving Target in 3D by Multi-agent Systems with Collision Avoidance: An Orthogonal Vector Fields-based Approach

Hang Zhong,Yaonan Wang,Zhiqiang Miao,Jianhao Tan,Ling Li,Hui Zhang,Rafael Fierro 제어·로봇·시스템학회 2019 International Journal of Control, Automation, and Vol.17 No.1

The problem of circumnavigating a moving target in a three dimensional setting by a network of agentswhile avoiding inter-agent collisions is addressed in this paper. A distributed control strategy is proposed for themulti-agent system to achieve three objectives: reaching the target plane with predesigned orientation, circulatingaround the target with prescribed radius, and avoiding collisions among agents. After representing the controlobjectives by three potential functions, the gradient fields of which are orthogonal to each other, the control lawthen is developed using the gradient vector field-based approach. The novelty of the proposed controller lies in theorthogonality of the vector fields, which decouples the control objectives and ensures global asymptotic convergenceto the desired motion, subject to some mild initial condition constraints. The stability and convergence analysis arepresented using Lyapunov tools, and the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy is demonstrated throughnumerical simulations.

Distributed Formation Control of Quadrotor UAVs Based on Rotation Matrices without Linear Velocity Feedback

Yanjie Chen,Jiacheng Liang,Zhiqiang Miao,Yaonan Wang 제어·로봇·시스템학회 2021 International Journal of Control, Automation, and Vol.19 No.10

This paper considers the problem of the formation control for multiple underactuated quadrotor UAVs without linear velocity measurements. The objective of this paper is expected to realize smooth formation performances for a quadrotor group. A distributed formation controller is designed directly using rotation matrices to obviate the singularities associated with the Euler-angles or the ambiguity of quaternions. A two-step procedure isadopted for the control development after transforming the dynamics of each quadrotor into a new form. At first, an intermediary control variable is introduced to achieve the formation control, where some auxiliary systems are designed in the presence of lacking linear velocity measurements. Then, based on the thrust force and reference angular velocity decoded from the intermediary control variable, the torque input of each quadrotor is proposed for angular velocity tracking. The case of formation control with a virtual leader is also investigated, where at least one quadrotor has the information of the leader. The asymptotic stability of the proposed control system is analyzed by Lyapunov-like tools, and the effectiveness of the proposed control method is verified by simulation studies. Thesimulation results show that the proposed method can guide the quadrotor group to form the desired formation smoothly without linear velocity feedback, which has great potentials for the UAV group to execute the challenging mission in hostile environments.

Nucleomodulin BspJ as an effector promotes the colonization of Brucella abortus in the host

Zhongchen Ma,Shuifa Yu,Kejian Cheng,Yuhe Miao,Yimei Xu,Ruirui Hu,Wei Zheng,Jihai Yi,Huan Zhang,Ruirui Li,Zhiqiang Li,Yong Wang,Chuangfu Chen 대한수의학회 2022 Journal of Veterinary Science Vol.23 No.1

Background: Brucella infection induces brucellosis, a zoonotic disease. The intracellular circulation process and virulence of Brucella mainly depend on its type IV secretion system (T4SS) expressing secretory effectors. Secreted protein BspJ is a nucleomodulin of Brucella that invades the host cell nucleus. BspJ mediates host energy synthesis and apoptosis through interaction with proteins. However, the mechanism of BspJ as it affects the intracellular survival of Brucella remains to be clarified. Objectives: To verify the functions of nucleomodulin BspJ in Brucella's intracellular infection cycles. Methods: Constructed Brucella abortus BspJ gene deletion strain (B. abortus ΔBspJ) and complement strain (B. abortus pBspJ) and studied their roles in the proliferation of Brucella both in vivo and in vitro. Results: BspJ gene deletion reduced the survival and intracellular proliferation of Brucella at the replicating Brucella-containing vacuoles (rBCV) stage. Compared with the parent strain, the colonization ability of the bacteria in mice was significantly reduced, causing less inflammatory infiltration and pathological damage. We also found that the knockout of BspJ altered the secretion of cytokines (interleukin [IL]-6, IL-1β, IL-10, tumor necrosis factor-α, interferon-γ) in host cells and in mice to affect the intracellular survival of Brucella. Conclusions: BspJ is extremely important for the circulatory proliferation of Brucella in the host, and it may be involved in a previously unknown mechanism of Brucella's intracellular survival.

Transient virus-induced gene silencing of MaBAM9b efficiently suppressed starch degradation during postharvest banana fruit ripening

Liu Mengting,Li Meng,Wang Yudi,Wang Jingyi,Miao Hongxia,Wang Zhuo,Xu Biyu,Li Xinguo,Jin Zhiqiang,Liu Juhua 한국식물생명공학회 2021 Plant biotechnology reports Vol.15 No.4

The genetic basis of metabolic pathways that operate during fruit ripening needs to be understood before the nutritional value of the banana can be improved. The banana is a typical starch conversion fruit, and β-amylase is a key enzyme that may play an important role in starch degradation during the ripening process. Musa acuminata β-amylase 9b (MaBAM9b) is closely related to starch degradation. However, its exact function in starch degradation has not been demonstrated in banana. Stable genetic transformation to identify gene function is a time- and energy-consuming process. Thus, an efficient and rapid method is needed for functional identification. Virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) is a reverse-genetics method based on RNA-mediated antiviral plant defense that has been used to rapidly identify gene functions in plants. The aim of this study was to optimize a transient VIGS system and functionally elucidate MaBAM9b in postharvest banana fruit. Using 2- to 4-mm-thick fruit slices, vacuum infiltration of suspensions of Agrobacterium strains carrying TRV1 and TRV2-MaBAM9b, 0.5% iodine-potassium-iodide (I2-KI) staining for 150 s, and 1:3 TRV1:TRV2-MaBAM9b cultivation at 30 mmHg for 30 s achieved an optical density (OD) of 0.8 at 600 nm; after being incubated on Murashige and Skoog (MS) media for 5 days (d), starch degradation was efficiently suppressed during postharvest banana fruit ripening, as determined by I2-KI staining, total starch content, β-amylase activity, soluble sugar content, and endogenous MaBAM9b expression. The system described here is particularly useful for studying genes and networks involved in starch conversion in fruits, which alone would not produce a visual phenotype. This system will provide a platform for functional genomics and fruit quality improvement in banana.

Adaptive Tracking Control of Nonholonomic Mobile Manipulators Using Recurrent Neural Networks

Guo Yi,Jianxu Mao,Yaonan Wang,Siyu Guo,Zhiqiang Miao 제어·로봇·시스템학회 2018 International Journal of Control, Automation, and Vol.16 No.3

The trajectory tracking problem is considered for a class of nonholonomic mobile manipulators in the presence of uncertainties and disturbances. First, under the assumption that the kinematic subsystem of mobile manipulator is capable of being transformed into the chained form and the dynamic subsystem of mobile manipulator is exactly known without considering external disturbances, a model-based controller is designed at the torque level using backstepping design technology. However, the model-based control may be inapplicable for practical applications, as the uncertainties and disturbances do exist in the dynamics of mobile manipulators inevitably. Thus, a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) based control system is developed without requiring explicit knowledge of the system dynamics. The control system comprises a RNN identifier and a compensation controller, in which the RNN is utilized to identify the unknown dynamics on-line, and the compensation controller is presented to compensate the approximation error and external disturbances. The online adaptive laws of the control system are derived in the Lyapunov sense so that the stability of the system can be guaranteed. Finally, simulation results for a wheeled mobile manipulator are provided to show the good tracking performance and robustness of the proposed control method.