Moringa oleifera, commonly known as moringa, “drumstick tree” or “horseradish tree”, is the most widely cultivated species of the genus Moringa in the family Moringaceae. It is used in human and animal nutrition as well as in traditional medicine. In July 2016, seed pod rot symptoms were observed on M. oleifera in Jinghong city, Yunnan Province, China. Disease incidences ranged from 10% to 50% among 200 pods from 3 different plots. Initially, pods developed water-soaked, brown to dark-green lesions, resulting in rapid rotting of the whole pod. Finally, white mycelia colonized rotten pods and numerous monosporous sporangiola appeared on the lesion surfaces. Tissues from 8 symptomatic pods were excised, and aseptically transferred to PDA plates and incubated at 26℃ with a 12:12 h light/dark cycle. White and pale yellowish-brown fungal colonies initiated after 2 days of incubation. Monosporous sporangiophores were smooth, hyaline, aseptate, and bearing monosporous sporangiola at their ends. Monosporous sporangiola were brown to brownish-black, elliptic, fusiform or oval, with striations visible at high magnification, and 8.2 to 17.2 × 15.6 to 22.8 μm (n=50) in size. Sporangia were dark brown, globose to subglobose (77.7 to 122.2 μm in length, n=30) and multispored. Sporangiospores from sporangia were fusiform or oval, brown to brownish-black, and 7.5 to 13.4 × 48.0 to 69.5 μm (n=30) in size. The morphological and cultural characteristics were found similar to those of Choanephora cucurbitarum (Kagiwada et al. 2010; Gogoi et al. 2016). DNA was extracted from one pure culture isolate (YJiH-1) using a DNA extraction kit (OMEGA, USA). The ITS region was amplified with primers ITS1/ITS4 (White et al. 1990) and the approximately 600 bp amplicon was cloned and sequenced. Isolate YJiH-1 (Accession No. KY618842) showed 99% identity with that of C. cucurbitarum isolate KUS-F27540 (Accession No. KM200034). Suspension of monosporous sporangiola (approximately 2.78×106 conidia/mL, 50μL) from YJiH-1 isolate was used to inoculate 6 healthy M. oleifera pods by pin-prick inoculation method (Jiang et al. 2008). Distilled water was inoculated onto another 3 healthy M. oleifera pods as control. Typical soft rot symptoms appeared on the inoculated pods after 7 days of inoculation, similar to those naturally occurring in the field, while the control pods remained symptomless. Koch’s postulates were fulfilled by re-isolating the pathogen from the lesions on rotting pods. Both the pathogenicity test and molecular identification results confirmed C. cucurbitarum as the causal agent of seed pod rot of M. oleifera. C. cucurbitarum has been reported on many plants such as peach, cabbage, ice plant, cucurbits, beans, papaya, pepper, potato, sweet potato, cauliflower, okra, and Crotalaria spectabilis (Kagiwada et al. 2010; Park et al. 2014; Gogoi et al. 2016). However, to our knowledge, this is the first report of C. cucurbitarum infecting M. oleifera in the world.

Cassava fiber (CF) is a novel dietary fiber extracted from cassava by-products. To investigate its anti-obesity mechanism, obesity was induced in mice through a high-fat diet (HFD). Dietary supplementation with 10% CF significantly reduced body weight, body fat, triglycerides, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, total cholesterol, and fasting blood glucose in mice. CF effectively ameliorated hepatic steatosis and adipocyte hypertrophy, increased the villus height-to-crypt depth ratio, enhanced mucus secretion by intestinal goblet cells, down-regulated the expression of ileal lipid absorption-related genes (NPC1L1, CD36, and FABP2), and up-regulated the short-chain fatty acid receptor GPR43, collectively improving intestinal health. Compared to HFD mice, CF altered the gut microbiota: it increased beneficial Actinobacteria (including Bifidobacterium and Blautia) and decreased Proteobacteria (including Desulfovibrio) (p < 0.05). Functional analysis showed that the HFD mice microbiota was enriched in genes linked to disease (e.g., lipid metabolism disorders, cancer, antibiotic resistance), whereas CF-enriched microbiota had genes for energy, carbohydrate, and pyruvate metabolism. Compared to microcrystalline cellulose, CF and MCC both alleviated HFD-induced obesity. In summary, cassava fiber helped prevent obesity in mice by modulating gut microbes, strengthening the gut barrier, and improving host metabolic balance.

Moringa oleifera stem and leaf (MOSL) represent a cost-effective unconventional feed resource, characterized by abundant crude protein, balanced amino acid profile, functional dietary fiber, and various bioactive substances, with a metabolizable energy level suitable for poultry feeding. This study systematically evaluated the nutritional value of MOSL and its feeding effects and underlying mechanisms in growing meat ducks. In Trial 1, the metabolizable energy and amino acid digestibility of MOSL in Muscovy ducks were determined using the force-feeding method. The results showed that the apparent metabolizable energy (AME) and true metabolizable energy (TME) of MOSL were 10.45 MJ/kg and 10.98 MJ/kg, respectively, with the true digestibility of methionine, lysine, and threonine reaching 79.80%, 79.98%, and 78.83%, respectively. For the 49-day feeding trial (Trial 2), a total of 150 clinically healthy 21 d male Muscovy ducks with uniform initial body weight (491.11 ± 30.41 g) were selected and randomly assigned to 5 dietary treatment groups, with 6 replicates per group and 5 ducks in each replicate. Ducks in each group were fed a basal diet supplemented with graded levels of MOSL at 0 (control, CON), 3%, 6%, 9% and 12%, respectively. The results showed that MOSL supplementation had no significant effect on the average daily feed intake (ADFI; P = 0.133) of ducks. However, dietary 6% and 9% MOSL inclusion significantly increased average daily gain (ADG; P = 0.041), reduced feed-to-gain ratio (F/G; P = 0.024). Relative to the control group, ducks in the 6% and 9% MOSL groups exhibited significantly higher apparent digestibility of crude protein (CP; P = 0.019) and crude fiber (CF; P = 0.007), notably enhanced digestive enzyme activities in both the pancreas and jejunum (P < 0.05), significantly reduced jejunal crypt depth (CD; P = 0.003), and elevated the villus height-to-crypt depth ratio (VH/CD; P < 0.001). MOSL supplementation significantly increased serum total superoxide dismutase (T-SOD) activity (P = 0.025), decreased malondialdehyde (MDA) content (P = 0.015). 16S rRNA gene sequencing revealed that 9% MOSL significantly enriched fiber-degrading bacteria, including Bacteroidota, Firmicutes, Prevotellaceae, and Butyricicoccaceae, while inhibiting the proliferation of pathogenic bacteria. Untargeted metabolomics analysis indicated that 9% MOSL supplementation reduced the accumulation of free amino acids and peptides in the intestine, upregulated bioactive compounds. In summary, this study is the first to systematically construct a nutritional value system for MOSL in meat ducks. MOSL enhances front-end nutrient digestion and absorption by increasing digestive enzyme activity and optimizing intestinal morphology, while strengthening hindgut crude fiber utilization by regulating gut microbiota and metabolic profiles. These synergistic effects comprehensively improve energy and protein utilization efficiency, enhance antioxidant capacity and metabolic homeostasis, and thus systematically improve the growth performance of meat ducks. The optimal dietary inclusion level of MOSL for growing meat ducks is 9%, which provides a scientific basis for the commercial application of MOSL in duck production

Moringa, a versatile tree species, has seen an increasing diversification of breeding objectives due to its rich nutritional value and potential applications in ecological restoration. The emergence and integration of multi-omics technologies have provided a revolutionary systems-level research framework for elucidating the fundamental biological mechanisms underlying Moringa’s agronomic traits and nutritional characteristics. This review systematically analyzes the application prospects and omics significance of Moringa based on research trends, and explores in depth the progress made in various omics studies of Moringa: the fourth iteration of the genome has identified specific genes encoding heat shock proteins (HSPs) in Moringa; phenomics reveals differential expression of Moringa under different environmental conditions; and the transcriptomics and metabolomics elucidate differential regulatory networks across different tissues and environments. In the future, multi-omics technologies can be integrated: genomics can further identify rare alleles and localize genetic loci for key agronomic traits; transcriptomics combined with epigenomics can elucidate the spatial regulation of gene expression and epigenetic mechanisms; and proteomics and metabolomics can be integrated to validate pathways and provide targets for improvement. Throughout the process, a high-throughput phenotyping platform utilizing drones will be introduced to dynamically monitor agronomic traits, enabling efficient breeding and accelerating genetic improvement.