Characterization and Identification of Lactic Acid Bacteria Isolated from Silage Prepared in Lao PDR

Silage is now the most common preserved cattle feed in many countries and lactic acid bacteria (LAB) play an important role during silage fermentation process. In order to establish an animal feed production system to cover the shortage of animal feed in the dry season of Lao PDR, silage fermentation technology is needed that has potential application in poor villages. Therefore, the characterization of LAB in various forage crops and their species identification requires further study. In the present study, the characterization of LAB species isolated from forage crops in Lao PDR was examined. In order to determine their taxonomic status, these strains were also studied by 16S rRNA sequence analysis

Assessment of climate change in Central Asia from 1980 to 2100 using the Koppen-Geiger climate classification

The accelerated global warming and heterogeneous change in precipitation have been resulting in climate system shifts, which plays a key role in the stability of ecosystem and social economic development. Central Asia is account 80% of the temperate desert, characterized by fragile ecosystem; however, it has experienced the fastest warming in recent decades and projected warming in future. The Koppen-Geiger climate classification is a useful tool to assess the potential impacts of climate change on regional ecosystem. The spatial shift and temporal evolution of each climatic zone based on Koppen-Geiger climate classification are analyzed in historical and future period under different scenarios (RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5), high risk regions that might experience more frequent climatic zone shifts are delimited in this study, which could provide the useful information for developing mitigate strategies in coping with the warming threat. The hotter and dryer subtypes of arid climatic zone and warmer subtypes of temperate climatic zone expanded their coverage in Central Asia, corresponding to the tundra climatic, cooler subtype of arid and temperate climatic zone contracted. Based on a method defining the climate-sensitivity, high risk regions are mainly distributed in northern Kazakhstan and Tianshan Mountains region

The state-of-the-art of urban climate change modeling and observations

As an effect of climate change, cities need detailed information on urban climates at decision scale that cannot be easily delivered using current observation networks, nor global and even regional climate models. A review is presented of the recent literature and recommendations are formulated for future work. In most cities, historical observational records are too short, discontinuous, or of too poor quality to support trend analysis and climate change attribution. For climate modeling, on the other hand, specific dynamical and thermal parameterization dedicated to the exchange of water and energy between the atmosphere and the urban surfaces have to be implemented. Therefore, to fully understand how cities are impacted by climate change, it is important to have (1) simulations of the urban climate at fine spatial scales (including coastal hazards for coastal cities) integrating global climate scenarios with urban expansion and population growth scenarios and their associated uncertainty estimates, (2) urban climate observations, especially in Global South cities, and (3) spatial data of high resolution on urban structure and form, human behavior, and energy consumption

Tonicity-responsive microRNAs contribute to the maximal induction of osmoregulatory transcription factor OREBP in response to high-NaCl hypertonicity

Osmotic response element binding protein (OREBP) is a Rel-like transcription factor critical for cellular osmoresponses. Previous studies suggest that hypertonicity-induced accumulation of OREBP protein might be mediated by transcription activation as well as posttranscriptional mRNA stabilization or increased translation. However, the underlying mechanisms remain incompletely elucidated. Here, we report that microRNAs (miRNAs) play critical regulatory roles in hypertonicity-induced induction of OREBP. In renal medullary epithelial mIMCD3 cells, hypertonicity greatly stimulates the activity of the 3′-untranslated region of OREBP (OREBP-3′UTR). Furthermore, overexpression of OREBP-3′UTR or depletion of miRNAs by knocking-down Dicer greatly increases OREBP protein expression. On the other hand, significant alterations in miRNA expression occur rapidly in response to high NaCl exposure, with miR-200b and miR-717 being most significantly down-regulated. Moreover, increased miR-200b or miR-717 causes significant down-regulation of mRNA, protein and transcription activity of OREBP, whereas inhibition of miRNAs or disruption of the miRNA–3′UTR interactions abrogates the silencing effects. In vivo in mouse renal medulla, miR-200b and miR-717 are found to function to tune OREBP in response to renal tonicity alterations. Together, our results support the notion that miRNAs contribute to the maximal induction of OREBP to participate in cellular responses to osmotic stress in mammalian renal cells

A phase separation method for analyses of fluoroquinones in meats based on ultrasound-assisted salt-induced liquid–liquid microextraction and a new integrated device

Herein, we developed a novel integrated device to perform phase separation based on ultrasound-assisted, salt-induced, liquid-liquid microextraction for determination of five fluoroquinones in meats by HPLC analysis. The novel integrated device consisted of three simple HDPE (high density polyethylene) parts that were used to separate the solvent from the aqueous solution prior to retrieving the extractant. The extraction parameters were optimized using the response surface method based on central composite design: 589μL of acetone solvent, pH2.1, 4.1min extraction time and 3.5g of Na2SO4. The limits of detection were 0.056-0.64 μgkg(-1) and recoveries were 87.2-110.6% for the five fluoroquinones in muscle tissue from fish, chicken, pork and beef. This method is easily constructed from inexpensive materials, extraction efficiency is high, and the approach is compatible with HPLC analysis. Thus, it has excellent prospects for sample pre-treatment and analysis of fluoroquinones in meat samples