Accelerated digestion of nucleic acids by pepsin from the stomach of chicken

<p></p><p>Nucleic acids have become an important nutritional supplement in poultry feed; however, the digestion of nucleic acids in poultry is unclear. The objective of this study was to investigate the digestion of nucleic acids by chicken pepsin <i>in vitro</i>.</p><p>The extracted pepsinogen from the stomach of the chicken was purified to homogeneity. Upon activation at pH 2.0, chicken pepsinogen was converted to its active form.</p><p>Nucleic acids, including λ-DNA, salmon sperm DNA and single-strand DNA (ssDNA), can be used as substrates and digested into short-chain oligonucleotides by pepsin.</p><p>Interestingly, the digestion of the nucleic acids was inhibited when pepsin was treated by alkaline solution (pH 8.0) or pepstatin A. Also, the digestion of the nucleic acids was not affected by the addition of haemoglobin or bovine serum albumin.</p><p>The results suggested that nucleic acids could be digested by chicken pepsin. Thus pepsin may have a role in digesting nucleic acids <i>in vivo</i>. Nucleic acids added to poultry fed may be digested, starting from the stomach.</p><p></p> <p>Nucleic acids have become an important nutritional supplement in poultry feed; however, the digestion of nucleic acids in poultry is unclear. The objective of this study was to investigate the digestion of nucleic acids by chicken pepsin <i>in vitro</i>.</p> <p>The extracted pepsinogen from the stomach of the chicken was purified to homogeneity. Upon activation at pH 2.0, chicken pepsinogen was converted to its active form.</p> <p>Nucleic acids, including λ-DNA, salmon sperm DNA and single-strand DNA (ssDNA), can be used as substrates and digested into short-chain oligonucleotides by pepsin.</p> <p>Interestingly, the digestion of the nucleic acids was inhibited when pepsin was treated by alkaline solution (pH 8.0) or pepstatin A. Also, the digestion of the nucleic acids was not affected by the addition of haemoglobin or bovine serum albumin.</p> <p>The results suggested that nucleic acids could be digested by chicken pepsin. Thus pepsin may have a role in digesting nucleic acids <i>in vivo</i>. Nucleic acids added to poultry fed may be digested, starting from the stomach.</p

p‑Type InN Nanowires

In this Letter, we demonstrate that with the merit of nanowire structure and a self-catalytic growth process p-type InN can be realized for the first time by “direct” magnesium (Mg) doping. The presence of Mg acceptor energy levels in InN is confirmed by photoluminescence experiments, and a direct evidence of p-type conduction is demonstrated unambiguously by studying the transfer characteristics of InN nanowire field effect transistors. Moreover, the near-surface Fermi-level of InN can be tuned from nearly intrinsic to p-type degenerate by controlling Mg dopant incorporation, which is in contrast to the commonly observed electron accumulation on the grown surfaces of Mg-doped InN films. First-principle calculation using the VASP electronic package further shows that the p-type surface formed on Mg-doped InN nanowires is highly stable energetically

Photochemical Carbon Dioxide Reduction on Mg-Doped Ga(In)N Nanowire Arrays under Visible Light Irradiation

The photochemical reduction of carbon dioxide (CO₂) into energy-rich products can potentially address some of the critical challenges we face today, including energy resource shortages and greenhouse gas emissions. Our ab initio calculations show that CO₂ molecules can be spontaneously activated on the clean nonpolar surfaces of wurtzite metal nitrides, for example, Ga­(In)­N. We have further demonstrated the photoreduction of CO₂ into methanol (CH₃OH) with sunlight as the only energy input. A conversion rate of CO₂ into CH₃OH (∼0.5 mmol g_cat^–1 h^–1) is achieved under visible light illumination (>400 nm). Moreover, we have discovered that the photocatalytic activity for CO₂ reduction can be drastically enhanced by incorporating a small amount of Mg dopant. The definitive role of Mg dopant in Ga­(In)­N, at both the atomic and device levels, has been identified. This study reveals the potential of III-nitride semiconductor nanostructures in solar-powered reduction of CO₂ into hydrocarbon fuels

THE BARYON OSCILLATION SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY OF SDSS-III

The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) is designed to measure the scale of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) in the clustering of matter over a larger volume than the combined efforts of all previous spectroscopic surveys of large-scale structure. BOSS uses 1.5 million luminous galaxies as faint as i = 19.9 over 10,000 deg2 to measure BAO to redshifts z < 0.7. Observations of neutral hydrogen in the Lyα forest in more than 150,000 quasar spectra (g < 22) will constrain BAO over the redshift range 2.15 < z < 3.5. Early results from BOSS include the first detection of the large-scale three-dimensional clustering of the Lyα forest and a strong detection from the Data Release 9 data set of the BAO in the clustering of massive galaxies at an effective redshift z = 0.57. We project that BOSS will yield measurements of the angular diameter distance dA to an accuracy of 1.0% at redshifts z = 0.3 and z = 0.57 and measurements of H(z) to 1.8% and 1.7% at the same redshifts. Forecasts for Lyα forest constraints predict a measurement of an overall dilation factor that scales the highly degenerate DA (z) and H –1(z) parameters to an accuracy of 1.9% at z ~ 2.5 when the survey is complete. Here, we provide an overview of the selection of spectroscopic targets, planning of observations, and analysis of data and data quality of BOSS