This study set out to investigate the relationship between gut microbiota composition and host adaptation to high altitude conditions. Fecal samples from both high and low altitude humans and pigs were studied using multi-omics methods. 16S ribosomal meta-analysis results showed significant differences in bacterial diversity and composition between high and low altitude members of the same species, as well as between different species. Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas, and Sphingobacterium were the three most abundant bacterial genera found in high altitude fecal samples of both humans and pigs. The alpha diversities of microbiota from Chinese people were found to be relatively lower than those of people in other countries. We found significant convergent trends in microbial metagenome compositions between Tibetans and Tibetan pigs living at high altitudes, and significant differences between these and their low-altitude counterparts. Metabolic pathways related to energy metabolism, amino-acid metabolism, and carbohydrate metabolism were consistently enriched at high altitudes, in both Tibetans and Tibetan pigs. Propanoic acid and octadecanoic acid were significantly elevated in high-altitude Tibetan pigs, and genes related to these two metabolites were also up-regulated. Thus, this study revealed that unique gut bacteriomes and their functions may be closely related to environmental host adaptation in high altitude conditions, such as those in the Tibetan plateau.

Gene differential expression studies can serve to explore and understand the laws and characteristics of animal life activities, and the difference in gene expression between different animal tissues has been well demonstrated and studied. However, for the world‐famous rare and protected species giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), only the transcriptome of the blood and spleen has been reported separately. Here, in order to explore the transcriptome differences between the different tissues of the giant panda, transcriptome profiles of the heart, liver, spleen, lung, and kidney from five captive giant pandas were constructed with Illumina HiSeq 2500 platform. The comparative analysis of the intertissue gene expression patterns was carried out based on the generated RNA sequencing datasets. Analyses of Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment, and protein‐protein interaction (PPI) network were performed according to the identified differentially expressed genes (DEGs). We generated 194.52 GB clean base data from twenty‐five sequencing libraries and identified 18,701 genes, including 3492 novel genes. With corrected p value 2, we finally obtained 921, 553, 574, 457, and 638 tissue‐specific DEGs in the heart, liver, spleen, lung, and kidney, respectively. In addition, we identified TTN, CAV3, LDB3, TRDN, and ACTN2 in the heart; FGA, AHSG, and SERPINC1 in the liver; CD19, CD79B, and IL21R in the spleen; NKX2‐4 and SFTPB in the lung; GC and HRG in the kidney as hub genes in the PPI network. The results of the analyses showed a similar gene expression pattern between the spleen and lung. This study provided for the first time the heart, liver, lung, and kidney’s transcriptome resources of the giant panda, and it provided a valuable resource for further genetic research or other potential research.

Centromere protein A (CENP-A) is a histone H3 like protein, and it plays a very important role in chromosomal segregation during mitosis and meiosis. The analyses on the exon-intron organization of the Cenp-A gene in representative genomes revealed that multiple intron gain and loss events have occurred during the evolution of Cenp-A gene in opisthokonta (common ancestor of fungi and animals). Moreover, our results revealed that at least two positions were conserved in the intron gain and loss events during the evolution of the Cenp-A gene.

To evaluate the safety of concomitantly administering inactivated poliomyelitis vaccine produced from Sabin strains (sIPVs) with other vaccines.A descriptive analysis was carried out on adverse eve...

Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate the phylogenetic and expression analysis of the angiopoietin-like (ANGPTL) gene family and their role in lipid metabolism in pigs.Methods: In this study, the amino acid sequence analysis, phylogenetic analysis, and chromosome adjacent gene analysis were performed to identify the ANGPTL gene family in pigs. According to the body weight data from 60 Jinhua pigs, different tissues of 6 pigs with average body weight were used to determine the expression profile of ANGPTL1-8. The ileum, subcutaneous fat, and liver of 8 pigs with distinct fatness were selected to analyze the gene expression of ANGPTL3, ANGPTL4, and ANGPTL8.Results: The sequence length of ANGPTLs in pigs was between 1,186 and 1,991 bp, and the pig ANGPTL family members shared common features with human homologous genes, including the high similarity of the amino acid sequence and chromosome flanking genes. Amino acid sequence analysis showed that ANGPTL1-7 had a highly conserved domain except for ANGPTL8. Phylogenetic analysis showed that each ANGPTL homologous gene shared a common origin. Quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction analysis showed that ANGPTL family members had different expression patterns in different tissues. ANGPTL3 and ANGPTL8 were mainly expressed in the liver, while ANGPTL4 was expressed in many other tissues, such as the intestine and subcutaneous fat. The expression levels of ANGPTL3 in the liver and ANGPTL4 in the liver, intestine and subcutaneous fat of Jinhua pigs with low propensity for adipogenesis were significantly higher than those of high propensity for adipogenesis.Conclusion: These results increase our knowledge about the biological role of the ANGPTL family in this important economic species, it will also help to better understand the role of ANGPTL3, ANGPTL4, and ANGPTL8 in lipid metabolism of pigs, and provide innovative ideas for developing strategies to improve meat quality of pigs.