Female mice exposed to varying ratios of stearic to palmitic acid in a high-fat diet during gestation and lactation shows differential impairments of beta-cell function.

Aims: While emerging evidence implicates an abnormal stearic-to-palmitic acid ratio in saturated fats in beta-cell dysfunction, their gestational/lactational impacts remain underexplored. This study evaluates the differential transient and long-lasting effects of high-fat diets with contrasting stearic-to-palmitic acid ratios on maternal beta-cell function.

Materials And Methods: Female mice were fed high-fat diets with high/low stearic-to-palmitic acid ratios during gestation/lactation, followed by a recovery period and subsequent exposure to an obesogenic diet.

Neomycin biosynthesis is regulated positively by AfsA-g and NeoR in Streptomyces fradiae CGMCC 4.7387.

Neomycins are a group of aminoglycoside antibiotics with both clinical and agricultural applications. To elucidate the regulatory mechanism of neomycin biosynthesis, we completed draft genome sequencing of a neomycin producer Streptomyces fradiae CGMCC 4.7387 from marine sediments, and the neomycin biosynthesis gene cluster was identified.

Significance of hind wing morphology in distinguishing genera and species of cantharid beetles with a geometric morphometric analysis.

There remain some difficulties in delimitation of related genera or sibling species for cantharid beetles, because the traditionally taxonomic method and morphological characters have not been updated or introduced. In the present study, we firstly use the landmark-based geometric morphometrics to analyze and compare the hind wings of nine species belonging to three genera of Cantharinae to ascertain whether this approach may be used as a reliable method in the study of the taxonomy of this group. The results show that the shape differences of the hind wings among genera seem more variable than that within each genus, and the variations for each species are different from one another, as shown in the principal component analyses.

Taxonomy of Fissocantharis Pic (Coleoptera, Cantharidae) from Guangxi, China, with descriptions of six new species.

A total of 17 species of Fissocantharis Pic is recorded from Guangxi, China. Six species are described new to science, Fissocantharissinensomima sp. n.