Comparative miRNA expression profile analysis of porcine ovarian follicles: new insights into the initiation mechanism of follicular atresia

Follicular atresia occurs in every stage of ovarian development, which is relevant to female fertility. In the past decade, increasing studies have confirmed that miRNAs, a class of short non-coding RNAs, play an important role in follicular atresia by post-transcription regulation of their target genes. However, the function of miRNAs on follicular atresia initiation is unknown. In the present study, high-throughput small RNA sequencing was performed to analyze differential miRNA expression profiles between healthy (HF) follicles and early atretic (EAF) follicles. A total of 237 conserved miRNA were detected, and the miR-143 is the highest expressed in follicles. Meanwhile, we also found wide sequence variations (isomiRs) in porcine ovarian miRNA, including in 5′un-translation region, core seed sequences and 3′untranslation region. Furthermore, we identified 22 differentially expressed miRNAs in EAF groups compared to HF group, of which 3 miRNAs were upregulated, as well as 19 miRNAs were downregulated, and then the RT-PCR was performed to validate these profiles. The target genes of these differentially expressed miRNAs were predicted by using miRwalk, miRDB, and Targetscan database, respectively. Moreover, the gene ontology and KEGG pathway enrichment established that the regulating functions and signaling pathways of these miRNAs contribute to follicular atresia initiation and cell fate. In conclusion, this study provides new insights into the changes of miRNAs in early atretic follicles to demonstrate their molecular regulation in ovarian follicular atretic initiation

An End-to-End Atrous Spatial Pyramid Pooling and Skip-Connections Generative Adversarial Segmentation Network for Building Extraction from High-Resolution Aerial Images

Automatic building extraction based on high-resolution aerial imagery is an important challenge with a wide range of practical applications. One of the mainstream methods for extracting buildings from high-resolution images is deep learning because of its excellent deep feature extraction capability. However, existing models suffer from the problems of hollow interiors of some buildings and blurred boundaries. Furthermore, the increase in remote sensing image resolution has also led to rough segmentation results. To address these issues, we propose a generative adversarial segmentation network (ASGASN) for pixel-level extraction of buildings. The segmentation network of this framework adopts an asymmetric encoder–decoder structure. It captures and aggregates multiscale contextual information using the ASPP module and improves the classification and localization accuracy of the network using the global convolutional block. The discriminator network is an adversarial network that correctly discriminates the output of the generator and ground truth maps and computes multiscale L1 loss by fusing multiscale feature mappings. The segmentation network and the discriminator network are trained alternately on the WHU building dataset and the China typical cities building dataset. Experimental results show that the proposed ASGASN can accurately identify different types of buildings and achieve pixel-level high accuracy extraction of buildings. Additionally, compared to available deep learning models, ASGASN also achieved the highest accuracy performance (89.4% and 83.6% IoU on these two datasets, respectively)

Study on Construction Technology of Tunnel Entrance on High Steep Slope of Sichuan-Tibet Railway

The geological environment along the Sichuan-Tibet railway has the characteristics of plate splitting, frequent geological disasters, complex topography, large topography, cold climate, high cold and anoxia, etc. It is recognized by the world as one of the most difficult projects so far. Based on the construction of the tunnel entrance on the high and steep slope of the Sichuan-Tibet Railway, this paper conducts research on the construction of the tunnel construction, the reinforcement of the tunnel entrance and the protection of high and steep slopes. The integrated” tunnel entrance reinforcement system and the “carbon fiber lightweight active protection net” technology for slope protection are expected to provide a reference for the construction of the tunnel entrance of the Sichuan-Tibet railway high and steep slope

On the Feasible Sets of Products of bi-hypergraphs

Abstract—In this paper, we discuss respectively the relationships between the feasible sets of the Weak product, the Cartesian product and the disjunctive product of uniform bi-hypergraphs and the feasible sets of the factors. Keywords- hypergraph coloring; mixed hypergraph; feasible set; one-realization. I

Advances in Fiber-Based Wearable Sensors for Personal Digital Health Monitoring

With the continuous growth of the global economy, an increasing concern has emerged among individuals with regard to personal digital health. Smart fiber-based sensors meet people’s demands for wearable devices with the advantages of excellent skin-friendliness and breathability, enabling efficient and prompt monitoring of personal digital health signals in daily life. Furthermore, by integrating machine learning and big data analysis techniques, a closed-loop system can be established for personal digital health, covering data collection, data analysis, as well as medical diagnosis and treatment. Herein, we provide a review of the recent research progress on fiber-based wearable sensors for personal digital health. Firstly, a brief introduction is provided to demonstrate the importance of fiber-based wearable sensors in personal digital health. Then, the monitoring of biophysical signals through fiber-based sensors is described, and they are classified based on different sensing principles in biophysical signal monitoring (resistive, capacitive, piezoelectric, triboelectric, magnetoelastic, and thermoelectric). After that, the fiber-based biochemical signal sensors are described through the classification of monitoring targets (biofluids and respiratory gases). Finally, a summary is presented on the application prospects and the prevailing challenges of fiber-based sensors, aiming to implement their future role in constructing personal digital health networks

Effective Quality Breeding Directions—Comparison and Conservative Analysis of Hepatic Super-Enhancers between Chinese and Western Pig Breeds

The transcriptional initiation of genes is closely bound to the functions of cis-regulatory elements, including promoters, typical enhancers (TEs), and recently-identified super-enhancers (SEs). In this study, we identified these cis-regulatory elements in the livers of two Chinese (Meishan and Enshi Black) and two Western (Duroc and Large White) pig breeds using ChIP-seq data, then explored their similarities and differences. In addition, we analyzed the conservation of SEs among different tissues and species (pig, human, and mouse). We observed that SEs were more significantly enriched by transcriptional initiation regions, TF binding sites, and SNPs than other cis-elements. Western breeds included fewer SEs in number, while more growth-related QTLs were associated with these SEs. Additionally, the SEs were highly tissue-specific, and were conserved in the liver among humans, pigs, and mice. We concluded that intense selection could concentrate functional SEs; thus, SEs could be applied as effective detection regions in genomic selection breeding

Ginsenoside Compound K Ameliorates Development of Diabetic Kidney Disease through Inhibiting TLR4 Activation Induced by Microbially Produced Imidazole Propionate

Diabetic kidney disease (DKD) is a common and devastating complication in diabetic patients, which is recognized as a large and growing problem leading to end-stage kidney disease. As dietary-mediated therapies are gradually becoming more acceptable to patients with DKD, we planned to find active compounds on preventing DKD progression from dietary material. The present paper reports the renoprotective properties and underlying mechanisms of ginsenoside compound K (CK), a major metabolite in serum after oral administration of ginseng. CK supplementation for 16 weeks could improve urine microalbumin, the ratio of urinary albumin/creatinine and renal morphological abnormal changes in db/db mice. In addition, CK supplementation reshaped the gut microbiota by decreasing the contents of Bacteroides and Paraprevotella and increasing the contents of Lactobacillu and Akkermansia at the genus level, as well as reduced histidine-derived microbial metabolite imidazole propionate (IMP) in the serum. We first found that IMP played a significant role in the progression of DKD through activating toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4). We also confirmed CK supplementation can down-regulate IMP-induced protein expression of the TLR4 signaling pathway in vivo and in vitro. This study suggests that dietary CK could offer a better health benefit in the early intervention of DKD. From a nutrition perspective, CK or dietary material containing CK can possibly be developed as new adjuvant therapy products for DKD