Effect of potassium simplex optimization medium (KSOM) and embryo screening on the production of human lactoferrin transgenic cloned dairy goats

In this study, we produced cloned transgenic dairy goat based on dairy goat ear skin fibroblast as donor cells for nuclear transfer (NT), which were modified by human lactoferrin (hLF) gene. The developmental competence of NT embryos was compared with either between different embryo culture medium, potassium simplex optimization medium (KSOM) and tissue culture medium (TCM 199), or different classification of NT embryos (48 h after fusion). First we cultured NT embryos to cleavage stage (48 h after fusion) by TCM 199 supplemented with 1 mg/ml bovine serum albumin BSA and KSOM, then used TCM 199 supplemented with 10% FBS to culture them to blastula stage. The results show that the NT embryos in KSOM (19.5%) were superior to TCM 199 (10.6%) in blastulation. In the second experiment, we found that the growth rate of NT embryos (48 h after fusion) was different, then we divided them into four groups: 2-cell, 3- to 4-cell, 5- to 8-cell and >8-cell in stereo microscope and cultured them in vitro respectively. The results show day-2 embryos at 3-4cell and 5-8cell stage (31.9 and 28.2%, P < 0.05) had higher blastocyst formation rates than those at both 2-cell (9.1%) and >8-cell (8.3%) stage, and finally three healthy cloned transgenic goat were successfully produced using 3-8 cell embryos at Day-2 (82%). Using Hoechst 33342 staining, we also found that the >8 cells embryos at Day- 2 demonstrated higher frequency of fragmentation, which may be the one cause of the low blastocyst formation rate. This study therefore demonstrates that KSOM medium could be selected as the early embryo culture medium, and 3-8 cell embryos at day-2 (48 h after fusion) may be the suitable embryos for transplantation, which could reduce the nuclei fragmentation and result in good quality blastocysts that may also enhance the efficiency of transgenic cloned dairy goats production, as well as decrease the economic loss due to embryonic mortality when embryos are transferred to synchronized recipients.Key words: Nuclear transfer, KSOM, transgenic, human lactoferrin, dairy goat

Client-Oriented Blind Quality Metric for High Dynamic Range Stereoscopic Omnidirectional Vision Systems

A high dynamic range (HDR) stereoscopic omnidirectional vision system can provide users with more realistic binocular and immersive perception, where the HDR stereoscopic omnidirectional image (HSOI) suffers distortions during its encoding and visualization, making its quality evaluation more challenging. To solve the problem, this paper proposes a client-oriented blind HSOI quality metric based on visual perception. The proposed metric mainly consists of a monocular perception module (MPM) and binocular perception module (BPM), which combine monocular/binocular, omnidirectional and HDR/tone-mapping perception. The MPM extracts features from three aspects: global color distortion, symmetric/asymmetric distortion and scene distortion. In the BPM, the binocular fusion map and binocular difference map are generated by joint image filtering. Then, brightness segmentation is performed on the binocular fusion image, and distinctive features are extracted on the segmented high/low/middle brightness regions. For the binocular difference map, natural scene statistical features are extracted by multi-coefficient derivative maps. Finally, feature screening is used to remove the redundancy between the extracted features. Experimental results on the HSOID database show that the proposed metric is generally better than the representative quality metric, and is more consistent with the subjective perception

Architecture of broiler breeder energy partitioning models

A robust model that estimates the ME intake over broiler breeder lifetime is essential for formulating diets with optimum nutrient levels. The experiment was conducted as a randomized controlled trial with 40 Ross 708 broiler breeder pullets reared on 1 of 10 target growth trajectories, which were designed with 2 levels of cumulative BW gain in prepubertal growth phase and 5 levels of timing of growth around puberty. This study investigated the effect of growth pattern on energy efficiency of birds and tested the effects of dividing data into daily, 4-d, weekly, 2-wk, and 3-wk periods and the inclusion of random terms associated with individual maintenance ME and ADG requirements, and age on ME partitioning model fit and predictive performance. Model [I] was: MEId = a × BWb + c × ADGp + d × ADGn + e × EM + ε, where MEId was daily ME intake (kcal/d); BW in kg; ADGp was positive ADG; ADGn was negative ADG (g/d); EM was egg mass (g/d); ε was the model residual. Models [II to IV] were nonlinear mixed models based on the model [I] with inclusion of a random term for individual maintenance requirement, age, and ADG, respectively. Model [II] – 3 wk was chosen as the most parsimonious based on lower autocorrelation bias, closer fit of the estimates to the actual data (lower model MSE and closer R2 to 1), and greater predictive performance among the models. Estimated ME partitioned to maintenance in model [II] – 3 wk was 100.47 ± 7.43 kcal/kg0.56, and the ME requirement for ADGp, ADGn, and EM were 3.49 ± 0.37; 3.16 ± 3.91; and 2.96 ± 0.13 kcal/g, respectively. Standard treatment had lower residual heat production (RHP; -0.68 kcal/kg BW0.56) than high early growth treatment (0.79 kcal/kg BW0.56), indicating greater efficiency in utilizing the ME consumed. Including random term associated with individual maintenance ME in a 3-wk chunk size provided a robust, biologically sound life-time energy partitioning model for breeders