Energy intake and growth of weanling horses in a cold loose housing system

The demand for information relating to the nutrition of horses in a cold environment is increasing with the popularity of loose housing of horses. This study examined the energy intake and growth of 10 weanling horses from November to March (22 weeks) in a loose housing system (paddock and insulated sleeping hall with deep-litter bed). The horses were measured weekly for body condition and body weight, and the feeding was adjusted according to a horse’s body condition. Metabolizable energy (ME) intake was compared to Finnish (MTT 2006) and Swedish (SLU 2004) nutrient requirements for 6–12-month-old horses. ME intake (75.5 ± 11.8 MJ d-1, mean ± SD) was on average 24.6% above the requirements. The intake varied in a non-linear fashion in the course of the winter: y = 0.086x2 – 0.902x + 71.5, where x is weeks from November to March (p<0.001, R2=0.63). Low ambient temperature increased ME intake by about 1.8% in November (p<0.001), 0.5% in December (p<0.001) and 0.2% in January (p<0.05) per 1 °C decrease in ambient temperature when compared to nutrient requirements, but not in February and March. We conclude that the amount of extra energy needed decreases during the winter as the horses grow and acclimatize to the cold housing environment, i.e. as their body insulation increases. Horses gain weight at or above expected rates in cold conditions when the increased energy need is taken into account in the feeding

Bringing Farm Animal Welfare to the Consumer's Plate : Transparency, Labelling and Consumer Education

Peer reviewe

Consumer value journey with pet in multiple service touchpoints

Our paper explores how consumer value is negotiated in pet-related services. We combine the discussion on value with the standpoint of service design; the approaches of consumer journey and service touchpoints. The contribution lies in discussing how consumer value is experienced in pet-related services through and by the pet, not only within dyadic interaction between consumer and service provider. We argue that applying a consumer value journey gives a comprehensive understanding of experienced value in several touchpoints with multiple service providers.Non peer reviewe

Kulutus ja talous – Näkökulmia yhteiskunnan muutokseen : Juhlakirja professori Visa Heinosen 60-vuotispäiväksi

Peer reviewe

Advanced analysis and visualization of gene copy number and expression data

Peer reviewe

A method for finding putative causes of gene expression variation

The majority of microarray studies evaluate gene ex- pression differences between various specimens or con- ditions. However, the causes of this variability often re- main unknown. Our aim is to identify underlying causes of these patterns, a process that would eventually enable a mechanistic understanding of the deregulation of gene expression in cancer. The procedure consists of three phases: pre-processing, data integration and statistical analysis. We have applied the strategy to identify genes that are overexpressed due to amplification in breast cancer. The data were obtained from 14 breast cancer cell lines, which were subjected to cDNA microarray based copy number and expression experiments. The re- sult of the analysis was a list that consisted of 92 genes. This set includes several genes that are known to be both overexpressed and amplified in breast cancer. The com- plete study was published in Journal of the Franklin In- stitute 2004, and in this paper we focus on the main issues of the study

Comparison of Affymetrix data normalization methods using 6,926 experiments across five array generations

Peer reviewe

Effects of muscular dystrophy, exercise and blocking activin receptor IIB ligands on the unfolded protein response and oxidative stress

Protein homeostasis in cells, proteostasis, is maintained through several integrated processes and pathways and its dysregulation may mediate pathology in many diseases including Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). Oxidative stress, heat shock proteins, endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and its response, i.e. unfolded protein response (UPR), play key roles in proteostasis but their involvement in the pathology of DMD are largely unknown. Moreover, exercise and activin receptor IIB blocking are two strategies that may be beneficial to DMD muscle, but studies to examine their effects on these proteostasis pathways are lacking. Therefore, these pathways were examined in the muscle of mdx mice, a model of DMD, under basal conditions and in response to seven weeks of voluntary exercise and/or activin receptor IIB ligand blocking using soluble activin receptor-Fc (sAcvR2B-Fc) administration. In conjunction with reduced muscle strength, mdx muscle displayed greater levels of UPR/ER-pathway indicators including greater protein levels of IREloc, PERK and Atf6b mRNA. Downstream to IREloc and PERK, spliced Xbpl mRNA and phosphorylation of elF2oc, were also increased. Most of the cytoplasmic and ER chaperones and mitochondrial UPR markers were unchanged in mdx muscle. Oxidized glutathione was greater in mdx and was associated with increases in lysine acetylated proteome and phosphorylated sirtuin 1. Exercise increased oxidative stress when performed independently or combined with sAcvR2B-Fc administration. Although neither exercise nor sAcvR2B-Fc administration imparted a clear effect on ER stress/UPR pathways or heat shock proteins, sAcvR2B-Fc administration increased protein expression levels of GRP78/BiP, a triggering factor for ER stress/UPR activation and TxNIP, a redox-regulator of ER stress-induced inflammation. In conclusion, the ER stress and UPR are increased in mdx muscle. However, these processes are not distinctly improved by voluntary exercise or blocking activin receptor IIB ligands and thus do not appear to be optimal therapeutic choices for improving proteostasis in DMD. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe

Systematic bioinformatic analysis of expression levels of 17,330 human genes across 9,783 samples from 175 types of healthy and pathological tissues

Our knowledge on tissue- and disease-specific functions of human genes is rather limited and highly context-specific. Here, we have developed a method for the comparison of mRNA expression levels of most human genes across 9,783 Affymetrix gene expression array experiments representing 43 normal human tissue types, 68 cancer types, and 64 other diseases. This database of gene expression patterns in normal human tissues and pathological conditions covers 113 million datapoints and is available from the GeneSapiens website