Effects of Replacing Corn with Brown Rice or Brown Rice with Enzyme on Growth Performance and Nutrient Digestibility in Growing Pigs

Zhang, Defu,Li, Defa,Piao, X.S.,Han, In K.,Yang, Chul J.,Shin, In S.,Dai, J.G.,Li, J.B. Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 2002 Animal Bioscience Vol.15 No.9

A 4 week experiment was designed to study the effects of replacing corn with Chinese brown rice or adding different amylase in brown rice basal diet on growth performance and apparent fecal digestibilities of nutrients in growing pigs. One hundred and eight cross-bred pigs (Duroc${\times}$Landrace${\times}$Large White), weighing an average of $18.35{\pm}0.12kg$, were randomly assigned to 6 treatments with 6 replications per treatment. Diet in treatment 1 was corn-soybean meal basal diet, and in treatment 2, 3 and 4, corn was replaced by brown rice on rates of 33.3%, 66.7% and 100% respectively on the basis of treatment 1. And diets in treatment 5 and 6 were similar to treatment 4 except two kinds of amylases, glucoamylase and ${\alpha}$-amylase, were added respectively. The brown rice used in this experiment was husked from one kind of early, long grain, non-glutinous rice (ELGNR, indica rice) in southern China. The results indicated that there was a slight improvement in growth performance of pigs in brown rice treatments (p>0.05). The blood urea nitrogen value in treatment 2 was lower than that in treatment 1 (p<0.05). The differences of apparent fecal digestibilities of most nutrients were significant (p<0.05) except CP. Digestibilities of GE, OM and DM in treatment 4 were the best and digestibility of crude fat in treatment 5 appeared best (p<0.05). Contrast results between treatment 1 and treatment 2 to 4 indicated that the digestibility of GE, OM and DM increased significantly with the replacing rates of brown rice (p<0.05). Contrast results between treatment 4 and 5 indicated that adding glucoamylase in brown rice diet increased growth performance slightly (p>0.05) but not for digestibilities. This experiment shows a positive effect of brown rice on growth performance, especially on nutrient digestibility.

Complete Genome Sequencing and Infectious cDNA Clone Construction of Soybean Mosaic Virus Isolated from Shanxi

Defu Wang,Liyan Cui,Li Zhang,Zhennan Ma,Yanbing Niu 한국식물병리학회 2021 Plant Pathology Journal Vol.37 No.2

Soybean mosaic virus (SMV) is the predominant viral pathogen that affects the yield and quality of soy- bean. The natural host range for SMV is very narrow, and generally limited to Leguminosae. However, we found that SMV can naturally infect Pinellia ternata and Atractylodes macrocephala. In order to clarify the molecular mechanisms underlying the cross- family infection of SMV, we used double-stranded RNA extraction, rapid amplification of cDNA ends polymerase chain reaction and Gibson assembly tech- niques to carry out SMV full-length genome amplifi- cation from susceptible soybeans and constructed an infectious cDNA clone for SMV. The genome of the SMV Shanxi isolate (SMV-SX) consists of 9,587 nt and encodes a polyprotein consisting of 3,067 aa. SMV-SX and SMV-XFQ008 had the highest nucleotide and ami- no acid sequence identities of 97.03% and 98.50%, re- spectively. A phylogenetic tree indicated that SMV-SX and SMV-XFQ018 were clustered together, sharing the closest relationship. We then constructed a pSMV-SX infectious cDNA clone by Gibson assembly technology and used this clone to inoculate soybean and Ailanthus altissima; the symptoms of these hosts were similar to those caused by the virus isolated from natural infected plant tissue. This method of construction not only makes up for the time-consuming and laborious defect of traditional methods used to construct infec- tious cDNA clones, but also avoids the toxicity of the Potyvirus special sequence to Escherichia coli, thus providing a useful cloning strategy for the construction of infectious cDNA clones for other viruses and laying down a foundation for the further investigation of SMV cross-family infection mechanisms.

Finite-time Backstepping for Attitude Tracking with Disturbances and Input Constraints

Tao Jiang,Fubiao Zhang,Defu Lin 제어·로봇·시스템학회 2020 International Journal of Control, Automation, and Vol.18 No.6

Backstepping (BS) is an important framework to stabilize the high-order nonlinear system. This work develops a finite-time convergence property for the BS framework combined with an auxiliary input saturation compensator and applies it to address attitude tracking problem of a rigid body subjected to disturbances and input constraints. The finite-time convergence of the tracking error is guaranteed by introducing the fractional power of tracing errors. Meanwhile, the finite-time filters of the target commands and the finite-time disturbance observers inspired by multivariable super-twisting algorithm are employed to construct the finite-time BS framework. Another novelty is to propose a novel auxiliary system to handle the adverse effect of input saturation. The singularity of auxiliary dynamics is avoided by the cubic representation of auxiliary variables. Attitude tracking errors are demonstrated to converge to zeros in finite time despite the presence of input saturation and disturbances through Lyapunov theory. Comparative simulations are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed control system.

Accelerating Dissolution of Polyacrylamide in Offshore Oil Field

Qin Yu,Xiangguo Lu,Defu Zhang,Kun Xie 대한화학회 2015 Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society Vol.36 No.10

The solubility of polyacrylamide significantly reduces the efficiency of polymer flooding in offshore oil fields, because of the low performance of polyacrylamide and the special environment. The objective of this paper is to investigate a novel approach to accelerate the dissolution of hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (HPAM) by adding a co-solvent cholamine (MEA). We investigated the effects of MEA on the microstructure and the performance of HPAM. Results showed that the addition of MEA and the temperature rise greatly shortened the dissolution time of HPAM, while improved the rheological property and seepage behavior. The enhanced solubility of polyacrylamide and the performance of polymer solution can be attributed to the enlarging of the molecular clew size, the stretching of molecular chains and the lowering of the glass transition temperature of HPAM. The new approach has high practical and the economic values for applications of the polymer flooding technology in offshore oilfields with complex reservoir conditions.

Acteoside reduces testosterone by inhibiting cAMP, p450scc, and StAR in rat Leydig cells

Shuqiang Liu,Junwen Zhang,Weixuan Li,Tianxiang Zhang,Defu Hu 대한독성 유전단백체 학회 2015 Molecular & cellular toxicology Vol.11 No.1

The present study investigated the in vivo and in vitro effects of acteoside on testosterone production in Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats. The in vivo experiment revealed that acteoside reduced the testosterone level in serum significantly (P⁄0.05). The in vitro experiment also illustrated that acteoside significantly reduced testosterone production in SD rat Leydig cells in primary culture (P⁄0.05). Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay results demonstrated that acteoside significantly reduced the cyclic adenosine 3′, 5′-monophosphate (cAMP) level (P⁄0.05), and Western blot analysis showed that acteoside significantly reduced cholesterol side-chain cleavage enzyme (p450scc) and steroidogenic acute regulatory (StAR) expression (P⁄ 0.05). Hoechst 33342 staining and Western blotting showed that acteoside did not induce apoptosis in Leydig cells. Together, these results suggest that the acteoside-induced reduction in testosterone production in rat may be at least partially due to down-regulation of cAMP, p450scc, and StAR, but not apoptosis.

Perampanel ameliorates nitroglycerin-induced migraine through inhibition of the cAMP/ PKA/CREB signaling pathway in the trigeminal ganglion in rats

QingLing Zhai,KaiXin Wang,Defu Zhang,Jinbo Chen,XiaoMeng Dong,Yonghui Pan 대한통증학회 2023 The Korean Journal of Pain Vol.36 No.3

Background: Perampanel, a highly selective glutamate AMPA receptor antagonist, is widely used to treat epilepsy. Since the existence of common pathophysiological features between epilepsy and migraine, the aim of this study was to investigate whether perampanel could exert an antimigraine effect. Methods: Nitroglycerin (NTG) was used to induce a migraine model in rats, and the model animals were pretreatment with 50 μg/kg and 100 μg/kg perampanel. The expression of pituitary adenylate-cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) was quantified by western blot and quantitative real-time PCR in the trigeminal ganglion, and rat-specific enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in serum. Western blot was also conducted to explore the effects of perampanel treatment on the phospholipase C (PLC)/protein kinase C (PKC) and protein kinase A (PKA)/ cAMP-responsive-element-binding protein (CREB) signaling pathways. Moreover, the cAMP/PKA/CREB-dependent mechanism was evaluated via in vitro stimulation of hippocampal neurons. The cells were treated with perampanel, antagonists and agonists for 24 hours and cell lysates were prepared for western blot analysis. Results: Perampanel treatment notably increased the mechanical withdrawal threshold and decreased head grooming and light-aversive behaviors in NTG-treated rats. It also decreased PACAP expression and affected cAMP/ PKA/CREB signaling pathway. However, PLC/PKC signaling pathway may not be involved in this treatment. In in vitro studies, perampanel notably decreased PACAP expression by inhibiting cAMP/PKA/CREB signaling pathway. Conclusions: This study shows that perampanel inhibits the migraine-like pain response and that this beneficial effect might be attributable to regulation of the cAMP/PKA/CREB signaling pathway.

Some Factors Affecting Freezing of Boar Semen in 5 ml Maxi-straws

Dai, J.J.,Wu, C.F.,Zhang, Defu,Yin, F.Z.,Zhang, T.Y.,Liu, D.,Wu, H.L.,Li, L.L.,Yang, S.T.,Wang, L. Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 2009 Animal Bioscience Vol.22 No.4

A series of experiments were conducted to determine the suitable freezing and thawing temperatures for the freezing of boar semen in 5 ml maxi-straws. The ultrastructure, in vitro fertilization (IVF) and artificial insemination (AI) of frozen-thawed semen were also be evaluated. The 5 cm freezing height gave the best results not only in post-thaw motility rate (54.00%), but also in normal acrosome morphology rate (NAR) (80.23%). There was no significant difference in the post-thaw motility between different thawing temperatures and corresponding thawing times (p>0.05); the group of $52^{\circ}C$ and 25 s gave the highest motility rate (45.00%). As a whole, not only from the motility but also the NAR, thawing at $42^{\circ}C$ was better than the other two treatments. In the freezing packages, 5 ml maxi-straw gave a little lower mobility (40%), viability rate (49.58%), plasma membrane integrity rate (53.91%) and NAR (52.65%) than the 0.25 ml straw, but there was no significant difference between the two straw volumes (p>0.05). The IVF capacity of frozen-thawed semen in this experiment was similar to fresh semen. From ultrastructure observation, the main damage to boar spermatozoa after freezing was seen in the acrosome, such as swelling and formation of vesicles. After AI in recipient Shanghai White sows, frozen-thawed semen from 5 ml maxi-straws and pellets produced 72.2% and 80% conception rate and 7.8 and 8 litter sizes, respectively, and there was no significant difference between the 5 ml maxi-straw and the pellet (p>0.05).

Carcass Fat-free Lean Gain of Chinese Growing-finishing Pigs Reared on Commercial Farms

Yang, Libin,Li, Defa,Qiao, Shiyan,Gong, Limin,Zhang, Defu Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 2002 Animal Bioscience Vol.15 No.10

Five regions and 258 pigs were selected for this study: North (Beijing), Central (Wuhan), South (Guangzhou), Southwest (Chongqing), Northeast (Harbin). Five typical genetics of growing-finishing pig were selected: Landrace${\times}$Large White${\times}$Beijing Black, Duroc${\times}$Landrace${\times}$Large White, Duroc${\times}$Large White${\times}$Landrace, Landrace${\times}$Rongchang, Landrace${\times}$Harbin White, respectively at each sites. The basal diet was a corn-soybean meal containing sufficient nutrients to meet requirements. Carcass fat-free lean gain was determined by dissecting and analyzing chemical composition of the carcass. Cubic function fitted lean moistures to live weights better than other functions. Exponential function fitted lean lipids to live weights equally to allometric function. Carcass fat-free lean gain of Duroc${\times}$Large White${\times}$Landrace, Landrace${\times}$Large White${\times}$Beijing Black, Duroc${\times}$Landrace${\times}$Large White, Landrace${\times}$Harbin White, Landrace${\times}$Rongchang from 20 to 100 kg of average body weight was 259 g/d, 261 g/d, 311 g/d, 220 g/d, 200 g/d, respectively. All are lower than intermediate fat-free lean gain in NRC (1998).