Gene markers of dietary macronutrient composition and growth in the skeletal muscle of gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata)

To increase our current knowledge on the nutritional regulation of growth and gene expression pattern in fish skeletal muscle, the effect of dietary macronutrient composition was assessed on digestibility, nutrient retention, growth performance, and the mRNA levels of key genes involved in functionality, growth and development of the skeletal muscle in gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata). Long-term starvation decreased the expression of myogenic regulatory factors such as Myod2, Myf5, myogenin (Myog) and Myf6 in the skeletal muscle of S. aurata. The supply of high or medium protein, low carbohydrate diets enhanced growth parameters, feed efficiency ratio, feed conversion ratio and significantly upregulated myod2. However, the supply of low protein, high carbohydrate diets restricted growth and stimulated the mRNA levels of myostatin, while downregulated follistatin (fst), igf1, mtor and rps6. Microarray analysis revealed igfals, tnni2, and gadd45a as gene markers upregulated by diets enriched with protein, lipids and carbohydrates, respectively. The results of the present study show that in addition to myod2, fst, igf1, mtor and rps6, the expression levels of igfals, tnni2 and remarkably gadd45a in the skeletal muscle can be used as markers to evaluate the effect of dietary macronutrient changes on fish growth and muscle development in S. aurata.This work was supported by the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, Spain (grant no. AGL2016-78124-R; cofunded by the European Regional Development Fund, European Commission) and the Agencia Nacional de Investigacion ´ y Desarrollo, Chile (Becas Chile/ 2011–72111506). The authors thank Piscicultura Marina Mediterranea (Burriana, Castellon, ´ Spain) for providing S. aurata juveniles.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Nuclear Interactions of 400 GeV Protons in Emulsion

We report on 400 GeV proton-emulsion nucleus reactions and compare the results to hadron-nucleus reactions at smaller energies. In particular we present results on the emission of fast target protons (essentially grey track particles) and on their correlation with the number of collisions inside the nucleus, ν, with the number of charged evaporated particles (essentially black track particles) and with the number of pions produced (essentially shower particles). We observe that the main features of the 200¿400 GeV data are very similar. However, we find that the mean shower-particle multiplicity at 400 GeV is essentially higher than expected from the simple independent particle model prediction 〈ns〉 = 〈nch〉[1 + 0.5(〈ν〉 − 1)]. The shower particle multiplicities do not seem to follow a target mass dependence of the form 〈ns〉 = 〈nch〉 Aα with α = 0.14 or α = 0.19 as has been suggested in the literature. The pseudo-rapidity distribution shows limiting target and projectile fragmentation. The shower-particle multiplicity in the ¿central region¿ increases linearity with 〈ν〉 but faster than 0.5〈ν〉 times the corresponding multiplicity in pp reactions