Risk Assessment and Prevention of Foot-and-Mouth Disease Transmission from Laos to China.

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is classified as a Class I animal disease in China and listed as one of the notifiable animal diseases by the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH). It significantly impacts the safe production of livestock and the trade of animals and related products. China's Yunnan Province shares a 710 km border with Laos, with frequent cross-border trade, and the cross-border flow of animals and related products occurs from time to time.

QTL analysis to identify genes involved in the trade-off between silk protein synthesis and larva-pupa transition in silkworms.

Background: Insect-based food and feed are increasingly attracting attention. As a domesticated insect, the silkworm (Bombyx mori) has a highly nutritious pupa that can be easily raised in large quantities through large-scale farming, making it a highly promising source of food. The ratio of pupa to cocoon (RPC) refers to the proportion of the weight of the cocoon that is attributed to pupae, and is of significant value for edible utilization, as a higher RPC means a higher ratio of conversion of mulberry leaves to pupa.

High-resolution silkworm pan-genome provides genetic insights into artificial selection and ecological adaptation.

The silkworm Bombyx mori is an important economic insect for producing silk, the "queen of fabrics". The currently available genomes limit the understanding of its genetic diversity and the discovery of valuable alleles for breeding. Here, we deeply re-sequence 1,078 silkworms and assemble long-read genomes for 545 representatives.

A multi-motion bionic soft hexapod robot driven by self-sensing controlled twisted artificial muscles.

Artificial muscles have unique advantages for driving bionic robots because their driving mode is similar to biological muscles. However, there is still a big gap between the existing artificial muscle and biological muscle in performance. The twisted artificial muscles (TAMs) from nylon 6,6 provides a low-cost, high integration, low hysteresis driving method.

Whole-genome resequencing reveals loci under selection during silkworm improvement.

Breeding or genetic improvement refers to the process of artificial selection following domestication; as such, it has had a major influence on modern agriculture and animal production. Improvement generally focuses on traits that greatly affect the economic performance. Therefore, understanding the genetic basis underlying improvement will contribute to the identification of genes controlling economic traits and will facilitate future crop and animal breeding.

Identification and effect of Zf-AD-containing C2H2 zinc finger genes on BmNPV replication in the silkworm (Bombyx mori).

Zf-AD-containing C2H2 zinc -finger genes (ZAD) are uniquely present and have lineage-specific expansion in arthropods. Arthropods are also the hosts of Baculoviruses. We studied the possible relationship between the lineage-specific expansion of ZAD genes and arthropod-Baculovirus co-evolution.

The beta-1, 4-N-acetylglucosaminidase 1 gene, selected by domestication and breeding, is involved in cocoon construction of Bombyx mori.

Holometabolous insects have distinct larval, pupal, and adult stages. The pupal stage is typically immobile and can be subject to predation, but cocoon offers pupal protection for many insect species. The cocoon provides a space in which the pupa to adult metamorphosis occurs.

[Cloning and function analysis of elongase of very long chain fatty acid gene Bmelo424 in silkworm].

Genes belonging to the elongases of very long chain fatty acid (ELOVL) family affect many physiological functions in organism. In this paper, Bmelo424 gene, a member of the ELOVL family in silkworm, was cloned and its ORF was 558 bp. Its protein sequence was predicted to have four transmembrane domains, six serine phosphorylation sites, eight threonine phosphorylation sites and four tyrosine phosphorylation sites, and its subcellular localization was in the endoplasmic reticulum.

Genome-wide identification and characterization of myosin genes in the silkworm, Bombyx mori.

Myosins are a large family of actin filament-based motor proteins with a broad range of functions such as intracellular membrane trafficking, endocytosis, exocytosis, organellar transport, growth cone motility, cytokinesis, and cell locomotion. They are found in many organisms from fungi to humans. The myosin gene family in Bombyx mori is poorly studied, even though the molecular functions of these genes in vertebrates and insects, such as Drosophila, are well known.

Identification of Genes that Control Silk Yield by RNA Sequencing Analysis of Silkworm (Bombyx mori) Strains of Variable Silk Yield.

Silk is an important natural fiber of high economic value, and thus genetic study of the silkworm is a major area of research. Transcriptome analysis can provide guidance for genetic studies of silk yield traits. In this study, we performed a transcriptome comparison using multiple silkworms with different silk yields.

Genome-wide identification and analysis of elongase of very long chain fatty acid genes in the silkworm, Bombyx mori.

Very long chain fatty acids (VLCFAs), such as sphingolipids, are components of cellular lipids, which are essential for cell proliferation. Mutations in the genes that encode proteins participating in VLCFA biosynthesis may cause inherited diseases, such as macular degeneration. Elongases of very long chain fatty acid (ELOVL) are enzymes that are involved in the biosynthesis of VLCFAs.

BmYki is transcribed into four functional splicing isoforms in the silk glands of the silkworm Bombyx mori.

Yorkie (Yki), the Drosophila homolog of vertebrate yes-associated protein (YAP), is a key effector of the Hippo pathway, which modulates organ size via the transcriptional regulation of downstream targets involved in cell proliferation and survival. YAP has been shown to be expressed as multiple splicing isoforms in mammals, but thus far, no evidence of alternatively spliced Yki isoforms has been reported in insects. Here, we confirmed that the Yki protein of the silkworm Bombyx mori, BmYki, is transcribed in the silk gland into at least four splicing isoforms, named BmY1329, BmY1314, BmY1188, and BmY1173.

QTL analysis of cocoon shell weight identifies BmRPL18 associated with silk protein synthesis in silkworm by pooling sequencing.

Mechanisms that regulate silk protein synthesis provide the basis for silkworm variety breeding and silk gland bioreactor optimization. Here, using the pooling sequencing-based methodology, we deciphered the genetic basis for the varied silk production in different silkworm strains. We identified 8 SNPs, with 6 on chromosome 11 and 1 each on chromosomes 22 and 23, that were linked with silk production.

Cloning and expression analysis of BmYki gene in silkworm, Bombyx mori.

The transcriptional coactivator Yorkie(Yki), is a critical downstream effector of the Hippo(Hpo) signaling pathway that controls organ size through the regulation of cell proliferation and apoptosis. During the past ten years the biological function of Yki has been studied extensively in Drosophila and a few other insects, however, little is known about it in the silkworm, Bombyx mori, a major research model of lepidopteran insect. Here, we describe the isolation, characterization and expression of the B.

[Screening, identification and optimization of fermentation conditions of an antagonistic endophyte to mulberry bacterial blight].

Objective: Antagonistic endophytic strains with strongly inhibitory activity to mulberry bacterial blight (P. syringae pv. mori) were isolated from mulberry endophytes, we identified the antagonistic endophyte and optimized the fermentation conditions.

[Latest progress in postmortem interval estimation].

Accurate estimation of the postmortem interval (PMI) has been one of the most important and complicated issues in the forensic practice. In order to provide novel perspectives for the future research concerning PMI, the advantages and disadvantages of related traditional methods, postmortem degradation of nucleic acid and tissue, the componential change of vitreous humor and histological biochemistry since 2002 have been introduced and compared in this review.

Effect of organophosphate phoxim exposure on certain oxidative stress biomarkers in the silkworm.

Organophosphorus (OP) insecticides are widely used in agriculture, which are toxic to insect pests and nontarget organisms. The current study mainly assessed the effect of the pesticide phoxim on oxidative stress by certain biomarkers in the fat body and midgut of the silkworm, Bombyx mori (L.), after exposure to 50% lethal concentration (LC50) of phoxim for 2 h.

Concentrations of heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in needles of Masson pine (Pinus massoniana L.) growing nearby different industrial sources.

Emissions from industrial activities pose a serious threat to human health and impose the need for monitoring both inorganic and organic pollutants in industrial areas. We selected Masson pine (Pinus massoniana L.) as potential biomonitor and collected the current (C) and previous year (C+1) needles from three industrial sites dominated by petrochemical, ceramics manufacturing, and iron and steel smelting plants and one remote site to determine heavy metals (Cu, Cd, Pb, Zn, Cr, Ni and Co) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in unwashed and water-washed needles.

Identification, genomic organization and expression pattern of glutathione S-transferase in the silkworm, Bombyx mori.

Glutathione S-transferases (GSTs) are a multifunctional supergene family and some play an important role in insecticide resistance. We have identified 23 putative cytosolic GSTs by searching the new assembly of the Bombyx mori genome sequence. Phylogenetic analyses on the amino acid sequences reveal that 21 of the B.