Deer antler is widely used as a nutraceutical in Asian countries. In the past decades, deer antler peptides (DAPs) have received considerable attention because of their various biological properties such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-bone damage, anti-neurological disease, anti-tumor and immunomodulatory properties. This review describes the production methods of DAPs and the recent progress of research on DAPs, focusing on the physiological functions and their regulatory mechanisms.

The skin of amphibians is a tissue with biological functions, such as defense, respiration, and excretion. In recent years, researchers have discovered a large number of peptides in the skin secretions of amphibians, including antimicrobial peptides, antioxidant peptides, bradykinins, insulin-releasing peptides, and other peptides. This review focuses on the origin, primary structure, secondary structure, length, and functions of peptides secreted from amphibians’ skin. We hope that this review will provide further information and promote the further study of amphibian skin secretions, in order to provide reference for expanding the research and application of amphibian bioactive peptides.

Pig growth performance is one of the criteria for judging pork production and is influenced by genotype and external environmental factors such as feeding conditions. The growth performance of miniature pigs, such as Bama minipigs, differs considerably from that of the larger body size pigs, such as Landrace pigs, and can be regarded as good models in pig growth studies. In this research, we identified differentially expressed genes in the pituitary gland of Bama minipigs and Landrace pigs. Through the pathway enrichment analysis, we screened the growth-related pathways and the genes enriched in the pathways and established the protein–protein interaction network. The RNAHybrid algorithm was used to predict the interaction between differentially expressed microRNAs and differentially expressed mRNAs. Four regulatory pathways (Y-82-ULK1/CDKN1A, miR-4334-5p-STAT3/PIK3R1/RPS6KA3/CAB39L, miR-4331-SCR/BCL2L1, and miR-133a-3p-BCL2L1) were identified via quantitative real-time PCR to detect the expression and correlation of candidate miRNAs and mRNAs. In conclusion, we revealed potential miRNA–mRNA regulatory networks associated with pig growth performance in the pituitary glands of Bama minipigs and Landrace pigs, which may help to elucidate the underlying molecular mechanisms of growth differences in pigs of different body sizes.