A fas apoptotic inhibitory molecule from Ruditapes philippinarum: Investigation on molecular characterization and functional analysis

In the present study, a fas apoptotic inhibitory molecule (FAIM) was identified from Ruditapes philippinarum (designated as RpFAIM). Multiple alignments and phylogenetic analysis strongly suggested that RpFAIM was a new member of the FAIMs family. The RpFAIM transcripts were constitutively expressed in a wide range of tissues, and dominantly expressed in hemocytes. After V. anguillarum or M. luteus challenge, the expression level of RpFAIM transcripts was significantly induced and reached the maximum level at 6 h and 24 h, respectively. Knockdown of RpFAIM down-regulated the transcript levels of NF-kappa B signaling genes (e.g. RpIKK, RpI kappa B, RpNF-kappa B). The results were roughly similar to those under bacterial stimulation. Moreover, RpFAIM primarily localized in the cell cytoplasm, and its over-expression inhibited the apoptosis of HeLa cells. These results revealed that RpFAIM perhaps regulated the NF-kappa B signaling pathways positively, which provided a better understanding of RpFAIM in innate immunity

Human-Mimetic Estimation of Food Volume from a Single-View RGB Image Using an AI System

It is well known that many chronic diseases are associated with unhealthy diet. Although improving diet is critical, adopting a healthy diet is difficult despite its benefits being well understood. Technology is needed to allow an assessment of dietary intake accurately and easily in real-world settings so that effective intervention to manage being overweight, obesity, and related chronic diseases can be developed. In recent years, new wearable imaging and computational technologies have emerged. These technologies are capable of performing objective and passive dietary assessments with a much simplified procedure than traditional questionnaires. However, a critical task is required to estimate the portion size (in this case, the food volume) from a digital image. Currently, this task is very challenging because the volumetric information in the two-dimensional images is incomplete, and the estimation involves a great deal of imagination, beyond the capacity of the traditional image processing algorithms. In this work, we present a novel Artificial Intelligent (AI) system to mimic the thinking of dietitians who use a set of common objects as gauges (e.g., a teaspoon, a golf ball, a cup, and so on) to estimate the portion size. Specifically, our human-mimetic system “mentally” gauges the volume of food using a set of internal reference volumes that have been learned previously. At the output, our system produces a vector of probabilities of the food with respect to the internal reference volumes. The estimation is then completed by an “intelligent guess”, implemented by an inner product between the probability vector and the reference volume vector. Our experiments using both virtual and real food datasets have shown accurate volume estimation results

Per-Nucleus Crossover Covariation and Implications for Evolution

International audienceCrossing over is a nearly universal feature of sexual reproduction. Here, analysis of crossover numbers on a per-chromosome and per-nucleus basis reveals a fundamental, evolutionarily conserved feature of meiosis: within individual nuclei, crossover frequencies covary across different chromosomes. This effect results from per-nucleus covariation of chromosome axis lengths. Crossovers can promote evolutionary adaptation. However, the benefit of creating favorable new allelic combinations must outweigh the cost of disrupting existing favorable combinations. Covariation concomitantly increases the frequencies of gametes with especially high, or especially low, numbers of crossovers, and thus might concomitantly enhance the benefits of crossing over while reducing its costs. A four-locus population genetic model suggests that such an effect can pertain in situations where the environment fluctuates: hyper-crossover gametes are advantageous when the environment changes while hypo-crossover gametes are advantageous in periods of environmental stasis. These findings reveal a new feature of the basic meiotic program and suggest a possible adaptive advantage

Effects of Bacillus velezensis Supplementation on the Growth Performance, Immune Responses, and Intestine Microbiota of Litopenaeus vannamei

In the present study, Bacillus velezensis (BV007, CGMCC No. 20039) was isolated from the gut of Litopenaeus vannamei, and the effects of BV007 on the growth performance, immune responses, and intestine microbiota of the shrimp were investigated. A total of 1,200 healthy shrimp (3.0 +/- 0.3 cm, 0.32 +/- 0.8 g) were randomly divided into four groups, and fed diets supplemented with different levels of BV007 (C: 0; BV1: 1 x 10(5) CFU/g; BV2: 1 x 10(7) CFU/g; and BV3: 1 x 10(9) CFU/g) for 8 weeks. The results showed a significantly increased final body length (FBL), length gain rate (LGR), final body weight (FBW), weight gain rate (WGR), plumpness index (PI), and specific growth rate (SGR) in shrimp fed with BV007 for 42 days compared with shrimp fed with control diet. The activity of alpha-amylase in hepatopancreas was also significantly increased in the BV007-administered groups. After 42 days of growth trial, the challenge test with Vibrio parahaemolyticus was conducted for 2 weeks. The enhanced immune responses were exhibited by shrimp fed with BV007 after V. parahaemolyticus challenge, particularly in respiratory bursts and superoxide dismutase, catalase, and alkaline phosphatase activities. Moreover, the administration of BV007 could considerably increase the abundance of potential probiotics (Bacillus) and reduced the abundances of potential pathogenic bacteria (Vibrio) in shrimp intestines. In conclusion, the dietary supplementation with B. velezensis BV007 could promote the growth performance, enhance the immune responses, and modulate the intestine microbiota of shrimp, and 10(7) CFU/g feed was recommended to be used as a feed additive to enhance the growth and health status of shrimp.</p

The complete mitochondrial genome of Tetragonia tetragonioides (Pall.) Kuntze and its phylogenetic implications

The complete mitochondrial genome sequence of Tetragonia tetragonioides (Pall.) Kuntze was assembled and characterized in the present study. The mitochondrial genome was 347,227 bp in length and had a GC content of 43.84%, including 24 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes and three ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes. Phylogenetic analysis showed that T. tetragonioides was close to and Sesuvium portulacastrum

A Novel Approach to Dining Bowl Reconstruction for Image-Based Food Volume Estimation

Knowing the amounts of energy and nutrients in an individual&rsquo;s diet is important for maintaining health and preventing chronic diseases. As electronic and AI technologies advance rapidly, dietary assessment can now be performed using food images obtained from a smartphone or a wearable device. One of the challenges in this approach is to computationally measure the volume of food in a bowl from an image. This problem has not been studied systematically despite the bowl being the most utilized food container in many parts of the world, especially in Asia and Africa. In this paper, we present a new method to measure the size and shape of a bowl by adhering a paper ruler centrally across the bottom and sides of the bowl and then taking an image. When observed from the image, the distortions in the width of the paper ruler and the spacings between ruler markers completely encode the size and shape of the bowl. A computational algorithm is developed to reconstruct the three-dimensional bowl interior using the observed distortions. Our experiments using nine bowls, colored liquids, and amorphous foods demonstrate high accuracy of our method for food volume estimation involving round bowls as containers. A total of 228 images of amorphous foods were also used in a comparative experiment between our algorithm and an independent human estimator. The results showed that our algorithm overperformed the human estimator who utilized different types of reference information and two estimation methods, including direct volume estimation and indirect estimation through the fullness of the bowl