ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Cell Walls, Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, Centre for Nutrition and Food Sciences, The University of Queensland, St Lucia Brisbane, 4072, Australia.
Published: February 2018
AI Article Synopsis
Article Abstract
The effects of refined pectin and mango pulp on macronutrient digestion and small intestinal enzyme activity were studied in grower pigs. Diets based on wheat starch with and without apple pectin or dried mango fruit pulp were fed to 30 grower pigs for 21 days. Pigs were euthanized two hours postprandially, and their gastrointestinal contents recovered. Starch and protein digestion as well as α-amylase activity were all increased in pigs fed pectin. In contrast, fat digestion, lipase and protease (trypsin) activities were all significantly reduced in these pigs. Pigs fed the mango fruit pulp diet had intermediate effects compared with pigs fed refined pectin and control diets. The data suggests that pectin has a significant effect on digestive enzyme activity and subsequent influence on macronutrient digestion. The fact that pectin caused either an increase (α-amylase) or decrease (lipase, protease) in enzyme activity in digesta, which either did (starch, lipid) or did not (protein) associate with residual nutrient differences illustrates the complexity of small intestinal responses to added fibre in diets.
In eukaryotes, accurate chromosome segregation during cell division relies on the centromeric histone H3 variant, CENH3. Our previous work identified KINETOCHORE NULL2 (αKNL2) as a plant CENH3 assembly factor, which contains a centromere-targeting motif, CENPC-k, analogous to the CENPC motif found in CENP-C. We also demonstrated that αKNL2 can bind DNA in vitro in a sequence-independent manner, without the involvement of its CENPC-k motif.
Tetracycline (TC) antibiotics are one of the class of drugs widely used in clinical practice but also constitute a significant environmental concern. However, the adverse effects of TC on non-target organisms have not been well studied. The aim of this study was to examine the influence of exposure to high levels of TC on thalli of lichens to determine the impact on (1) physiological parameters including integrity of cell membranes, photosynthetic efficiency and viability, (2) oxidative stress response such as membrane lipid peroxidation, and (3) enzymatic antioxidant activities as catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), and glutathione reductase (GR).
Motivation: Thousands of genomes are publicly available, however, most genes in those genomes have poorly defined functions. This is partly due to a gap between previously published, experimentally-characterized protein activities and activities deposited in databases. This activity deposition is bottlenecked by the time-consuming biocuration process.
β-Glucosidase plays a pivotal role in transforming ginsenosides into specific minor ginsenosides. In this study, total ginsenosides from Panax notoginseng leaves were used as substrates to stimulate the growth of Aspergillus niger NG1306. Transcriptome analysis identified a β-glucosidase gene, Anglu04478 (1455 bp, 484 amino acids, 54.
In the present investigation, 13% ± 0.84 of the extracted and purified phycocyanin from Phormidium versicolor was obtained, with a purity of 0.69 following dialysis.
