Abstract To investigate effects of high-fat diet (HFD) on body length, weight and depression-like behavior of prenatal stress (PS) offspring rats. PS rat model was established by restraint stress. Sucrose preference and forced swimming tests were performed. Moreover, the effects of HFD on the growth and depression-like behavior in offspring rats were observed. Length of male and female HF group was significantly longer than that control, but length of male PS+HF group was significantly shorter than HF group. Body weight of male and female HF group was significantly higher than control, and body weight of male PS+HF group was significantly lower than HF group. No significant differences were observed in length between female PS +HF and HF groups. Compared with male PS+HF group, growth rate of male HF group was significantly higher. Moreover, HFD could reduce sucrose preference, and prolong immobility time of PS offspring rats. HFD can promote weight gain of male and female normal offspring rats. PS can partially inhibit effects of HFD on weight gain of PS male offspring rats, but exert no significant effects on PS female offspring rats. HFD can aggravate PS-induced depression-like behavior in offspring rats.

Glutenin macfopolymef (GMP), an important component of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), consists of high weight (HMW-GS) and low-molecular-weight (LMW-GS) gutenin subunits. In wheat, the subunit composition and GMP characteristics are important factors affecting processing quality. The objective of this study was to characterize the effects of soil water status, cultivar and grain position in wheat spike, on GMP particles distribution. Wheat cultivars Jinan 17, Yannong 24 and Lumai 21 with different end-use quality were used in 2009-2011 growing season, and two water regimes (irrigated and rainfed): two irrigations (750 m³ ha-1 each at jointing and booting stage) for irrigated, and none for rainfed. The experimental design was a complete randomized block with three replicates; data were analyzed whith ANOVA and Tukey test (p ≤ 0.05) for treatment means, using SPSS. All determinations were replicated three times. Plot dimension was 3 mx3 m. At maturity, the heads flowering on the same date were sampled and detached as basal and distal grains according to the position on spikelets. GMP particles distribution and HMW-GS content were affected (p ≤ 0.05) by soil water, genotype and grain position. Basal grains on middle spikelets showed higher (p ≤ 0.05) HMW-GS and GMP content than those in distal grains at maturity. The volume and surface area percentage of >100 µm GMP particles in basal grains were higher (p ≤ 0.05) than that in distal grains, but those of <12 µm particles in basal grains were lower than that in distal grains. Compared with irrigation, percent volume and surface area of >100 µm GMP particles in basal and distal grains were significantly increased (p ≤ 0.05), and content of HMW-GS and GMP were also increased in rainfed condition. As a result, basal and distal grains have different quality characteristics and application. A promising breeding strategy would be to improve grain yield and quality by increasing average grain weight rather than grain number within a spikelet. When managing for wheat production, the water factor was the most important manipulation to regulate the yield and quality.

El macropolímero de glutenina (GMP), un componente importante del trigo (Triticum aestivum L.), se compone de sublimidades de glutenina con peso molecular alto (HMW-GS) y bajo (LMW-GS). En el trigo, la composición de subunidades y características de GMP son factores importantes que afectan la calidad del procesamiento. El objetivo de este estudio fue caracterizar los efectos del estado hídrico del suelo, los cultivares y la posición del grano en la espiga de trigo sobre la distribución de las partículas GMP. Los cultivares de trigo Jinan 17, Yannong 24 y Lumai 21, con diferente calidad en el uso final, fueron utilizados en la temporada de crecimiento 2009-2011 y se aplicaron dos regímenes hídricos (riego y temporal): dos riegos (750 m³ ha-1 cada uno en la etapa de elongación del tallo y formación de la espiga) para los de riego, y ninguno para los de temporal. El diseño experimental fue bloques completos al azar con tres repeticiones y los datos se analizaron con ANDEVA y la prueba de Tukey (p ≤ 0.05), para comparar de las medias de los tratamientos, usando SPSS. Todas las determinaciones se repitieron tres veces. La dimensión de la parcela fue de 3 mx3 m. En la madurez, las espigas floreciendo en la misma fecha se muestrearon y separaron como granos basales y distales según la posición en las espiguillas. La distribución de las partículas GMP y el contenido de HMW-GS fueron afectados (p ≤ 0.05) por el agua del suelo, el genotipo y la posición del grano. Los granos basales en las espiguillas de la parte media tenían más (p ≤ 0.05) HMW-GS y GMP que los distales en madurez. El volumen y porcentaje del área superficial de las partículas GMP >100 µm en granos basales fueron mayores (p ≤ 0.05) que en los distales, pero los de partículas de <12 µm en los granos basales eran menores que en los distales. En comparación con el riego, el porcentaje de volumen y área superficial de partículas GMP > 100 µm en los granos basales y distales aumentaron significativamente (p<0.05), y los contenidos de HMW-GS y GMP también aumentaron en condiciones de temporal. Como resultado, los granos basales y distales tienen características diferentes de calidad y aplicación. Una estrategia de mejora genética prometedora sería mejorar el rendimiento del grano y su calidad aumentando el peso medio del grano en lugar del número de granos dentro de una espiguilla. En la producción de trigo, el manejo del factor agua fue el más importante para regular el rendimiento y la calidad.

Circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) may represent a potential noninvasive molecular biomarker for various pathological conditions. Moreover, the detection of circulating miRNAs can provide important novel disease-related information. In particular, inflammation-associated miR-155 and endothelial-enriched miR-126 are reported to be associated with vascular homeostasis. Vascular damage is a common event described in end-stage renal disease (ESRD). We hypothesized that miR-155 and miR-126 may be detectable in the circulation and serve as potential biomarkers for risk stratification. In this study, we assessed miR-155 and miR-126 in the plasma of 30 ESRD patients and 20 healthy controls using real-time quantification RT-PCR. The circulating levels of miR-155 and miR-126 were significantly reduced in patients with ESRD compared to healthy controls. However, there was no significant difference of circulating miR-155 and miR-126 levels between prehemodialysis and posthemodialysis patients. Furthermore, both circulating miR-126 and miR-155 correlated positively with estimated glomerular filtration rate (miR-126: r = 0.383, P = 0.037; miR-155: r = 0.494, P = 0.006) and hemoglobin (miR-126: r = 0.515, P = 0.004; miR-155: r = 0.598, P < 0.001) and correlated inversely with phosphate level (miR-126: r = -0.675, P < 0.001; miR-155: r = -0.399, P = 0.029). Pearson’s correlation was used to compare circulating levels of miRNAs with clinical parameters. These results suggested that circulating miR-155 and miR-126 might be involved in the development of ESRD. Further studies are needed to demonstrate the role of circulating miR-155 and miR-126 as candidate biomarkers for risk estimation.

OBJECTIVES: Immunoglobulin A nephropathy is the most common cause of chronic renal failure among primary glomerulonephritis patients. The ability to diagnose immunoglobulin A nephropathy remains poor. However, renal biopsy is an inconvenient, invasive, and painful examination, and no reliable biomarkers have been developed for use in routine patient evaluations. The aims of the present study were to identify immunoglobulin A nephropathy patients, to identify useful biomarkers of immunoglobulin A nephropathy and to establish a human immunoglobulin A nephropathy metabolic profile. METHODS: Serum samples were collected from immunoglobulin A nephropathy patients who were not using immunosuppressants. A pilot study was undertaken to determine disease-specific metabolite biomarker profiles in three groups: healthy controls (N = 23), low-risk patients in whom immunoglobulin A nephropathy was confirmed as grades I-II by renal biopsy (N = 23), and high-risk patients with nephropathies of grades IV-V (N = 12). Serum samples were analyzed using proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and by applying multivariate pattern recognition analysis for disease classification. RESULTS: Compared with the healthy controls, both the low-risk and high-risk patients had higher levels of phenylalanine, myo-Inositol, lactate, L6 lipids ( = CH-CH2-CH = O), L5 lipids (-CH2-C = O), and L3 lipids (-CH2-CH2-C = O) as well as lower levels of β -glucose, α-glucose, valine, tyrosine, phosphocholine, lysine, isoleucine, glycerolphosphocholine, glycine, glutamine, glutamate, alanine, acetate, 3-hydroxybutyrate, and 1-methylhistidine. CONCLUSIONS: These metabolites investigated in this study may serve as potential biomarkers of immunoglobulin A nephropathy. Point scoring of pattern recognition analysis was able to distinguish immunoglobulin A nephropathy patients from healthy controls. However, there were no obvious differences between the low-risk and high-risk groups in our research. These results offer new, sensitive and specific, noninvasive approaches that may be of great benefit to immunoglobulin A nephropathy patients by enabling earlier diagnosis.