Effect of Moringa oleifera supplementation on productive performance, colostrum composition and serum biochemical indexes of sow.

Moringa oleifera has been considered as a potential functional feed or food, since it contains multiple components beneficial to animal and human. However, little is known about the effects of Moringa oleifera supplementation on productive performances in sows. In the current study, the results showed that dietary Moringa oleifera significantly decreased the farrowing length and the number of stillborn (p < .

[Heterogenous expression and enzymatic property analysis of microbial-derived pectinases in pig PK15 cells].

As one of plant cell wall components, pectin is the main anti-nutritional factor in livestock and poultry feeds and has an adverse effect on utilization efficiency of feed energy and nitrogen. Pectinases, which are widely found in microorganisms such as bacteria, yeast and filamentous fungi in nature,can improve feed efficiency by relieving the anti-nutritional effect of pectin through promoting the hydrolysis reaction of feed pectin. To explore the feasibility of expressing microbial-derived pectinase genes in pig cells, we introduced microbial-derived pectinase genes pg5a, pgI, pga3A, and pgaA into porcine PK 15 cells by lipofection for heterogenous expression.

[MEK inhibitor PD0325901 significantly boosts ssODN-mediated HDR efficiency in porcine fetal fibroblasts].

There are two major pathways, homology-directed repair (HDR) and nonhomologous end joining (NHEJ), involved in double-strand break (DSB) repair. Single-stranded oligodeoxyribonucleotide (ssODN)-mediated homologous recombination repair is commonly used for animal site-directed genome editing, with great scientific and practical value. To improve ssODN-mediated HDR efficiency in the pig genome, we investigated the effect and molecular mechanism of mitogen-activated extracellular signal-regulated kinase (MEK) inhibitor PD0325901 on the HDR efficiency in porcine fetal fibroblasts (PFFs).

[Histone H3K27me3 in the regulation of skeletal muscle development].

Histone methylation is a modification which occurs in the N-terminal peptide chains of the histone nucleosome. The 4th, 9th, 27th, 36th and 79th lysines in N-terminal peptide chain of histone H3 are hot spots for this modification, including mono-, di-, and tri-methylation. H3K27me3 is the tri-methylation modification on histone H3 lysine 27, which mainly functions as a transcriptional repressor regulating skeletal muscle development.

β-Glucanase specific expression in the intestine of transgenic pigs.

Producing heterologous enzymes in the animal digestive tract to improve feed utilization rate is a new research strategy by transgenic technology. In this study, transgenic pigs specifically expressing β-glucanase gene in the intestine were successfully produced by somatic cell nuclear transfer technology in order to improve digestibility of dietary β-glucan and absorption of nutrients. The β-glucanase activity in the intestinal juice of 4 transgenic pigs was found to be 8.

[Effects of RNA interference on the porcine NHEJ pathway repair factors on HR efficiency].

Non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ) is the predominant DNA double-strand break (DSB) repair pathway in mammalian cells. It inhibits the efficiency of homologous recombination (HR) by competing for DSB targets. To improve the efficiency of HR in porcine fetal fibroblasts (PFFs), several RNA interference (RNAi) systems were designed to knockdown NHEJ key molecules, such as polynucleotide kinase/phosphatase (PNKP), DNA ligase IV (LIG4) and NHEJ1.

Establishment of porcine Xist knockout model using CRISPR/Cas9 system.

Somatic cell nuclear transfer technique has great applications in livestock breeding, production of genetically modified animals, rescue of endangered species and treatment of human diseases. However, the currently low efficiency in animals cloning, an average of less than 5%, greatly hindered the rapid development of this technique. Among many factors which affect the efficiency of cloning pigs, X chromosome inactivation is an important one.

[Placental developmental defects in cloned mammalian animals].

The cloning technique, also called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), has been successfully established and gradually applied to various mammalian species. However, the developmental rate of SCNT mammalian embryos is very low, usually at 1% to 5%, which limits the application of SCNT. Placental developmental defects are considered as the main cause of SCNT embryo development inhibition.