Carlssonhouse6491
Tenderness is one of the most important meat quality traits and it can be measured through shear force with the Warner-Bratzler test. In the current study, we use the RNA-seq technique to analyze the transcriptome of Longissimus dorsi (LD) muscle in two groups of Iberian pigs (Tough and Tender) divergent for shear force breeding values. We identified 200 annotated differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and 245 newly predicted isoforms. Tranilast price The RNAseq expression results of 10 genes were validated with quantitative PCR (qPCR). Functional analyses showed an enrichment of DE genes in biological processes related to proteolysis (CTSC, RHOD, MYH8, ACTC1, GADD45B, CASQ2, CHRNA9 and ANKRD1), skeletal muscle tissue development (ANKRD1, DMD, FOS and MSTN), lipid metabolism (FABP3 and PPARGC1A) and collagen metabolism (COL14A1). The upstream analysis revealed a total of 11 transcription regulatory factors that could regulate the expression of some DEGs. Among them, IGF1, VGLL3 and PPARG can be highlighted since they regulate the expression of genes involved in biological pathways that could affect tenderness. The experiment revealed a set of candidate genes and regulatory factors suggestive to search polymorphisms that could be incorporated in a breeding program for improving meat tenderness.Plant-based foods are the main source of phytochemicals, including polyphenols, a large family of compounds with highly diverse chemical structures [...].Preeclampsia (PE) is a serious hypertensive disorder of pregnancy characterized by abnormal placental development with an unknown etiology. To better understand which women will develop PE, a number of maternal risk factors have been identified, including obesity. Visceral white adipose tissue (WAT) contains inflammatory mediators that may contribute to PE. To explore this, we utilized the blood pressure high (BPH)/5 mouse model of superimposed PE that spontaneously recapitulates the maternal PE syndrome. We hypothesized that BPH/5 visceral WAT adjacent to the female reproductive tract (reproductive WAT) is a source of complement factors that contribute to the inflammatory milieu and angiogenic imbalance at the maternal-fetal interface in this model and in preeclamptic women. To test our hypothesis, we calorie-restricted BPH/5 females for two weeks prior to pregnancy and the first seven days of pregnancy, which attenuated complement component 3 (C3) but not complement factor B, nor complement factor D, (adipsin) in the reproductive WAT or the implantation site in BPH/5. Furthermore, calorie restriction during pregnancy restored vascular endothelial and placental growth factor mRNA levels in the BPH/5 implantation site. These data show maternal reproductive WAT may be a source of increased C3 during pregnancy, which is increased at the maternal-fetal interface in preeclamptic BPH/5 mice. It also suggests that calorie restriction could regulate inflammatory mediators thought to contribute to placental dysfunction in PE. Future studies are necessary to examine the effect of calorie restriction on C3 throughout pregnancy and the role of maternal obesity in PE.Background and objectives Overnutrition leads to a metabolic and inflammatory response that includes the activation of Complement. Properdin is the only amplifier of complement activation and increases the provision of complement activation products. Its absence has previously been shown to lead to increased obesity in mice on a high fat diet. The aim of this study was to determine ways in which properdin contributes to a less pronounced obese phenotype. Materials and Methods Wild type (WT) and properdin deficient mice (KO) were fed a high-fat diet (HFD) for up to 12 weeks. Results There was a significant increase in liver triglyceride content in the KO HFD group compared to WT on HFD. WT developed steatosis. KO had an additional inflammatory component (steatohepatitis). Analysis of AKT signalling by phosphorylation array supported a decrease in insulin sensitivity which was greater for KO than WT in liver and kidney. There was a significant decrease of C5L2 in the fat membranes of the KO HFD group compared to the WT HFD group. Circulating microparticles in KO HFD group showed lower presence of C5L2. Expression of the fatty acid transporter CD36 in adipose tissue was increased in KO on HFD and was also significantly increased in plasma of KO HFD mice compared to WT on HFD. CD36 was elevated on microparticles from KO on HFD. Ultrastructural changes consistent with obesity-associated glomerulopathy were observed for both HFD fed genotypes, but tubular strain was greater in KO. Conclusion Our work demonstrates that complement properdin is a dominant factor in limiting the severity of obesity-associated conditions that impact on liver and kidney. The two receptors, C5L2 and CD36, are downstream of the activity exerted by properdin.Texture segmentation is a challenging problem in computer vision due to the subjective nature of textures, the variability in which they occur in images, their dependence on scale and illumination variation, and the lack of a precise definition in the literature. This paper proposes a method to segment textures through a binary pixel-wise classification, thereby without the need for a predefined number of textures classes. Using a convolutional neural network, with an encoder-decoder architecture, each pixel is classified as being inside an internal texture region or in a border between two different textures. The network is trained using the Prague Texture Segmentation Datagenerator and Benchmark and tested using the same dataset, besides the Brodatz textures dataset, and the Describable Texture Dataset. The method is also evaluated on the separation of regions in images from different applications, namely remote sensing images and H&E-stained tissue images. It is shown that the method has a good performance on different test sets, can precisely identify borders between texture regions and does not suffer from over-segmentation.Metabolic syndrome (MetS) components are strongly associated with increased risk of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) development. Several studies have supported that resveratrol is associated with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects on health status. The main objective of this study was to assess the putative associations between some urinary resveratrol phase II metabolites, cardiometabolic, and liver markers in individuals diagnosed with MetS. In this cross-sectional study, 266 participants from PREDIMED Plus study (PREvención con DIeta MEDiterránea) were divided into tertiles of total urinary resveratrol phase II metabolites (sum of five resveratrol conjugation metabolites). Urinary resveratrol metabolites were analyzed by ultra- performance liquid chromatography coupled to triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (UPLC-Q-q-Q MS), followed by micro-solid phase extraction (µ-SPE) method. Liver function markers were assessed using serum levels of aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT).