Effects of feeding earthworm or vermicompost on early life performance of broilers under challenging dietary conditions.

We investigated if feeding earthworms (EW) or vermicompost (VC) to broilers improves performance and aids in coping with dietary challenges from a soluble non-starch polysaccharide (NSP)-enriched diet (negative control diet; CON-). Newly-hatched male Cobb-500 birds (N = 480) were fed either a positive (+) control diet (CON+, n = 240) or CON+ supplemented with either 1% EW (CON+EW; n = 120) or 1% VC in DM (CON+VC; n = 120) for 8 d (Period 1; P1). At the end of P1, blood and intestinal samples were taken from half the birds in each group.

Active vitamin D increases myogenic differentiation in C2C12 cells via a vitamin D response element on the myogenin promoter.

Skeletal muscle development during embryogenesis depends on proliferation of myoblasts followed by differentiation into myotubes/multinucleated myofibers. Vitamin D (VD) has been shown to affect these processes, but there is conflicting evidence within the current literature on the exact nature of these effects due to a lack of time course data. With 20%-40% of pregnant women worldwide being VD deficient, it is crucial that a clearer understanding of the impact of VD on myogenesis is gained.

In vitro determination of the protein quality of maize varieties cultivated in Malawi using the INFOGEST digestion method.

There is an urgent need to alleviate protein deficiencies in low-income countries where cereal-based diets dominate. The objective of this study was to use the INFOGEST static digestion method and a recently established analytical workflow to determine the in vitro amino acid digestibility and protein quality of seven maize varieties grown in Malawi. Protein quality was measured using the in vitro digestible indispensable amino acid score (DIAAS).

A Comparison of Primary Human Hepatocytes and Hepatoma Cell Lines to Model the Effects of Fatty Acids, Fructose and Glucose on Liver Cell Lipid Accumulation.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) begins with lipid accumulation within hepatocytes, but the relative contributions of different macronutrients is still unclear. We investigated the impact of fatty acids, glucose and fructose on lipid accumulation in primary human hepatocytes (PHH) and three different cell lines: HepG2 (human hepatoblastoma−derived cell line), Huh7 (human hepatocellular carcinoma cell line) and McA-RH7777 (McA, rat hepatocellular carcinoma cell line). Cells were treated for 48 h with fatty acids (0 or 200 μM), glucose (5 mM or 11 mM) and fructose (0 mM, 2 mM or 8 mM).

Effect of AAV-mediated overexpression of ATF5 and downstream targets of an integrated stress response in murine skeletal muscle.

We previously reported that growth promoter-induced skeletal muscle hypertrophy co-ordinately upregulated expression of genes associated with an integrated stress response (ISR), as well as potential ISR regulators. We therefore used Adeno-Associated Virus (AAV)-mediated overexpression of these genes, individually or in combination, in mouse skeletal muscle to test whether they induced muscle hypertrophy. AAV of each target gene was injected into mouse Tibialis anterior (TA) and effects on skeletal muscle growth determined 28 days later.