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Introduction
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July 1998 - present
Publications
Publications (106)
Insects and animals are attracted to, and feed on ripe fruit, thereby promoting seed dispersal. As a vital vitamin and nutrient source, fruit make up an indispensable and enjoyable component of the human diet. Fruit ripening involves a series of physiological and biochemical changes in, among others, pigmentation, chlorophyll (Chl) degradation, tex...
Fruit flesh cell vacuoles play a pivotal role in fruit growth and quality formation. In the present study, intact vacuoles were carefully released and collected from protoplasts isolated from flesh cells at five sampling times along fig fruit development. Label-free quantification and vacuole proteomic analysis identified 1251 proteins, 1137 of whi...
Fig is an ancient gynodioecious fruit tree with females for commercial fruit production and hermaphrodites (males) sometimes used as pollen providers. An early sex-identification method would improve breeding efficiency. Three AGAMOUS (AG) genes were recruited from the Ficus carica genome using AG sequences from Ficus microcarpa and Ficus hispida....
The basic helix–loop–helix (bHLH) transcription factor family is the second largest transcription factor family in plants, and participates in various plant growth and development processes. A total of 118 bHLH genes were identified from fig (Ficus carica L.) by whole-genome database search. Phylogenetic analysis with Arabidopsis homologs divided t...
Background
Bagging can improve the appearance of fruits and increase the food safety and commodification, it also has effects on intrinsic quality of the fruits, which was commonly reported negative changes. Fig can be regarded as a new model fruit with its relatively small genome size and long fruit season.
Results
In this study, widely targeted...
This study aimed to investigate the effects of probiotic Lactobacillus paracasei NL41 on inflammation and the gut microbiota of type 2 diabetic (T2D) rats induced by high-fat diet (HFD) and low-dose streptozotocin (STZ). A T2D rat model was established by inducing Sprague-Dawley rats with HFD/STZ, followed by 12-weeks L. paracasei NL41 gavage. The...
The papain-like cysteine proteases (PLCPs) are the most abundant family of cysteine proteases in plants, with essential roles in biotic/abiotic stress responses, growth and senescence. Papain, bromelain and ficin are widely used in food, medicine and other industries. In this study, 31 PLCP genes (FcPCLPs) were identified in the fig (Ficus carica L...
Key message
The regulatory landscape of ethephon-accelerated fig ripening is revealed; flowers and receptacles exhibit opposite responses in anthocyanin accumulation; PG, PL and EXP are suggested key genes in fig softening.
Abstract
Ethephon is used to accelerate fig-fruit ripening for improvement of harvesting efficiency, but the underlying molec...
Background: Bagging can improve the appearance of fruits and increase the food safety and commodification, it also has effects on intrinsic quality of the fruits, which was commonly reported negative changes. Fig can be regarded as a new model fruit with its relatively small genome size and long fruit season.
Results: In this study, widely targeted...
Objective
Patients with renal failure suffer from symptoms caused by uraemic toxins, possibly of gut microbial origin, as deduced from studies in animals. The aim of the study is to characterise relationships between the intestinal microbiome composition, uraemic toxins and renal failure symptoms in human end-stage renal disease (ESRD).
Design
Cha...
Objective Patients with renal failure suffer from symptoms caused by uraemic toxins, possibly of gut microbial origin, as deduced from studies in animals. The aim of the study is to characterise relationships between the intestinal microbiome composition, uraemic toxins and renal failure symptoms in human end-stage renal disease (esrD).
Design char...
Scope:
The present study aims to assess the antidiabetic effect of Lactobacillus paracasei strain NL41 and its potential mechanisms in rats with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) induced by a high-fat diet and low-dose streptozotocin administration (HFD/STZ).
Methods and results:
Eighteen Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were randomly assigned to three gr...
Abstract Background Color directly affects fruit quality and consumer preference. In fig syconia, the female flower tissue is contained in a receptacle. Anthocyanin pigmentation of this tissue and the peel differs temporally and spatially. A transcriptome study was carried out to elucidate key genes and transcription factors regulating differences...
The vacuole plays a central role in fruit growth and quality formation, yet its proteomic landscape is largely unknown. In the present study, a protocol for isolating intact vacuoles from grape flesh tissue was successfully established. Quantitative proteome analysis identified 2533 proteins from five sampling dates along Cabernet Sauvignon berry d...
Background
Fig fruit are highly perishable at the tree-ripe (TR) stage. Commercial-ripe (CR) fruit, which are harvested before the TR stage for their postharvest transportability and shelf-life advantage, are inferior to TR fruit in size, color and sugar content. The succulent urn-shaped receptacle, serving as the protective structure and edible pa...
Intestinal bifidobacteria benefit human health by promoting and modulating the gut flora, and boosting therapeutic efficiency for chronic metabolic diseases and cancer. Recently, Bifidobacterium adolescentis strains with high adhesion to intestinal epithelial cells were associated with induction of T-helper 17 (Th17) cells in humans and rodents. He...
Key message
CPPU-induced San Pedro type fig main crop parthenocarpy exhibited constantly increasing IAA content and more significantly enriched KEGG pathways in the receptacle than in female flowers.
Abstract
N-(2-chloro-4-pyridyl)-N-phenylurea (CPPU) was applied to San Pedro fig (Ficus carica L.) main crop to induce parthenocarpy; the optimal eff...
Abstract Bifidobacterium longum strain BBMN68 is sensitive to low concentrations of oxygen. A transcriptomic study was performed to identify candidate genes for B. longum BBMN68’s response to oxygen treatment (3%, v/v). Expression of genes and pathways of B. longum BBMN68 involved in nucleotide metabolism, amino acid transport, protein turnover and...
Background:
Gibberellin (GA) treatments can induce parthenocarpy in the main crop of San Pedro-type figs, the native non-parthenocarpic fruit, however, the underlying mechanism is still largely unclear.
Results:
In our study, GA3 was applied to San Pedro-type fig main crop at anthesis. Sharply increased GA3 content was detected in both female fl...
Dipeptidyl peptidase-IV (DPP-IV) is a serine exo-peptidase that can inactivate incretins by removing N-terminal dipeptides. Currently, inhibiting the DPP-IV activity is a common treatment for type 2 diabetes (T2D). The goal of this study is to investigate whether IADHFL, a novel DPP-IV inhibitory peptide identified from bighead carp (Hypophthalmich...
Combined metabolomic and transcriptomic analyses were carried out with fig cultivar Green Peel and its color mutant “Purple Peel.” Five and twenty-two metabolites were identified as having significantly different contents between fruit peels of the two cultivars at young and mature stages, respectively. Cyanidin O-malonylhexoside demonstrated a 3,9...
In recent years, therapeutic peptides have garnered great interest in the pharmaceutical industry for the treatment of diabetes. Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are an appealing vehicle for safe and convenient oral delivery of bioactive peptide and protein drugs. Exendin-4 (Exd4) is a glucagon-like protein-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist that is considered a...
A novel lactose-responsive promoter of the ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter gene Lba1680 of Lactobacillus acidophilus strain 05-172 isolated from a traditionally fermented dairy product koumiss was characterized. In L. acidophilus 05-172, expression of Lba1680 was induced by lactose, with lactose-induced transcription of Lba1680 being 6.1-fol...
We investigated bioactive peptides obtained from muscle protein hydrolysate of bighead carp by evaluating in vitro dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPP-IV) and angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory capacities and antioxidant activity. Peptide sequences were identified from pepsin hydrolysates. Met-Lys-Ala-Val-Cys-Phe-Ser-Leu was one of the most ef...
San Pedro-type fig (Ficus carica L.) produces two crops a year, parthenocarpic breba and non-parthenocarpic main crop. The mechanism underlying the two crops’ differential parthenocarpy is largely unknown. For the first time, transcriptomic analysis of young breba and main crop at four stages of developmental phase I was performed by RNA sequencing...
Cultivars are a main agricultural material in the table grape production chain. China has the largest number of table grape growers in the world, but their cultivar-adoption preferences are largely unknown. We aimed to fill this gap. A questionnaire study, in-depth interview and photograph test were carried out with 1045 table grape growers in the...
Anthocyanidin synthase (ANS) is the key enzyme in anthocyanin biosynthesis. In this study, a full-length cDNA was cloned from fig (Ficus carica L.) syconia. Its open reading frame was 1077 base pairs (bp) long, encoding 358 amino acids. Multiple alignments revealed high amino acid sequence identity with ANS proteins from Morus alba (90% identity),...
Exendin-4, a glucagon-like protein-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist, is an excellent therapeutic peptide drug for type 2 diabetes due to longer lasting biological activity compared to GLP-1. This study explored the feasibility of using probiotic Lactobacillus paracasei as an oral vector for recombinant exendin-4 peptide delivery, an alternative to costly...
The effect of glucose concentration on GLP-1-stimulated insulin secretion from INS-1 cells.
Cells were cultured in media with different concentrations of glucose with or without GLP-1 for 2 h, and then insulin concentration was assayed. Medium with 3 mM glucose was used as a control. Data represent the means ± SD of three independent experiments.
(...
Background:
Proteinaceous bioactive substances and pharmaceuticals are most conveniently administered orally. However, the facing problems are the side effects of proteolytic degradation and denaturation in the gastrointestinal tract. In recent years, lactic acid bacteria (LAB) have been verified to be a promising delivery vector for susceptible f...
To investigate the role of the native plasmid pML21 in Enterococcus faecalis ML21's response to abiotic stresses, the plasmid pML21 was cured based on the principle of plasmid incompatibility and segregational instability, generating E. faecalis mutant strain ML0. The mutant and the wild strains were exposed to abiotic stresses: bile salts, low pH,...
The dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPP-IV)-inhibitory bioactivity of silver carp proteins (SCPs) hydrolysates were investigated, and their containing efficacious DPP-IV-inhibitory peptides were explored by in silico hydrolysis analysis, peptides separation combined with LC-MS/MS identification and chemical synthesis. SCPs hydrolysates generated by six pr...
Lycium ruthenicum Murr., which belongs to the family Solanaceae, is a resource
plant for Chinese traditional medicine and nutraceutical foods. In this
study, RNA sequencing was applied to obtain raw reads of L. ruthenicum fruit at
different stages of ripening, and a de novo assembly of its sequence was
performed. Approximately 52.45 million 100-bp...
Probiotics are live microorganisms that when administered in adequate amounts, confer health benefits on the host. In this study, 13 strains of Bifidobacterium were isolated from three samples of breast-fed infant feces. The isolates were identified based on conservative gene sequencing and phylogenetic analysis. In vitro tests included survival un...
Unlabelled:
The incretin hormones are extremely rapidly metabolized by the ubiquitous enzyme dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPP-IV). Therefore, DPP-IV inhibitors which can prolong the incretin effect are the newest and promising drugs for management of type 2 diabetes. In this study, we investigated whether Bifidobacteria colonizing the human gut posses...
Adhesion to host cells is considered important for Lactobacillus plantarum as well as other lactic acid bacteria (LAB) to persist in human gut and thus exert probiotic effects. Here, we sequenced the genome of Lt. plantarum strain NL42 originating from a traditional Chinese dairy product, performed comparative genomic analysis and characterized a n...
New dipeptidyl-peptidase IV (DPP-IV)-inhibitory peptides from trypsin/chymotrypsin-treated goat milk casein hydrolysates were isolated and identified by two-dimensional silica thin-layer chromatography (2D-TLC) combined to nano LC-MS/MS. 2D-TLC with chloroform:methanol:25% ammonia (2:2:1) and n-butanol:acetic acid:water (4:1:1) as the first- and se...
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Background and AimsMany new grape breeding lines with diverse quality attributes are becoming available every year. The search for specific markets is both time-consuming and labour-intensive. Consumer-assisted selection could help improve breeding and marketing efficiency.Methods and ResultsThree hundred and fifteen Chinese consumers were surveyed...
Bifidobacteria are probiotics that are incorporated live into various dairy products. They confer health-promotive effects via gastrointestinal tract colonization. However, to provide their health-beneficial properties, they must battle the various abiotic stresses in that environment, such as bile salts, acids, oxygen, and heat. In this study, Bif...
Unlabelled:
Thirty strains of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) were isolated from herders' traditional dairy products collected from Xinjiang, China. The species Lactobacillus, Lactococcus, Enterococcus, Pediococcus and Leuconostoc were identified by 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequencing analysis and conventional observation. The strains' fermentation chara...
The ability to manage reactive oxygen species (ROS) effectively is crucial for the survival of gut bifidobacteria under conditions of oxidative stress. Alkyl hydroperoxide reductase catalytic subunit C (ahpC) of Bifidobacterium longum responds to various oxidative stresses. In this study, an ahpC-overexpressing transformant of B. longum strain NCC2...
Bifidobacteria are generally sensitive to oxidative stress caused by reactive oxygen species (ROS). To improve oxidative-stress tolerance, the superoxide dismutase (SOD) gene from Streptococcus thermophilus (StSodA) and the heme-dependent catalase (KAT) gene from Lactobacillus plantarum (LpKatL) were heterologously expressed in Bifidobacterium long...
The main aim of the present work was to obtain microencapsulated whey protein concentrate hydrolysate (WPCH) in order to reduce its bitter taste and resistance to hygroscopicity without impairing its immunoregulatory activity by spray drying or freeze drying with whey protein concentrate (WPC) and sodium alginate (SA) as carriers. To attenuate its...
The zygomycete fungi like Rhizomucor miehei have been extensively exploited for the production of various enzymes. As a thermophilic fungus, R. miehei is capable of growing at temperatures that approach the upper limits for all eukaryotes. To date, over hundreds of fungal genomes are publicly available. However, Zygomycetes have been rarely investi...
##Assembly-Data-START## Assembly Method :: Vector NTI Advance v. 10 Sequencing Technology :: 454 ##Assembly-Data-END##
##Assembly-Data-START## Assembly Method :: Vector NTI Advance v. 10 Sequencing Technology :: 454 ##Assembly-Data-END##
26 strains of Lactic acid bacteria were isolated from traditional dairy products of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China. They were belonging to Lactobacillus, Lactococcus, Enterococcus, Pediococcus and Leuconostoc species by using 16S rRNA identification. Acid and bile salt tolerability analysis showed Bacillus were more tolerant to acid and m...
This article investigates the impact of sesame protein isolate (SPI) and increased calcium in milk on the biochemistry, rheology and micro-structure of cheese. The characteristics of two sets of cheeses made from raw milk and milk of 8% protein substituted by SPI (SPI milk) with 0, 5, 10 and 20 mM calcium addition were investigated. Adding SPI to m...
Gibberellin (GA) is widely used in the table grape and raisin industries to enlarge the berries of seedless varieties. However, the mechanism underlying its berry-sizing effect is poorly understood. In this study, clusters of Centennial Seedless (Vitis vinifera L.) were treated with 30 ppm GA3 on day 12 after flowering, and berries were sampled at...
Wuschel-related homeobox (WOX) genes play essential, specific, and sometimes redundant roles in plant embryo development, shoot and root meristem maintenance, and plant development. Though much information was quickly gained with members of the WOX gene family of Arabidopsis, monocotyledonous crops, and gymnospermous conifers, little is known about...
Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation is highly required for studies of grapevine gene function and of huge potential for tailored variety improvements. However, grape is recalcitrant to transformation, and the underlying mechanism is largely unknown. To better understand the overall response of grapevine to A. tumefaciens-mediated tran...
The ascomycetes Botrytis cinerea is one of the most studied necrotrophic phytopathogens and one of the main fungal parasites of grapevine. As a defense mechanism, grapevine produces a phytoalexin compound, resveratrol, which inhibits germination of the fungal conidium before it can penetrate the plant barriers and lead to host cell necrotrophy. To...
Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) encounter various types of stress during industrial processes and gastrointestinal transit. Catalase (CAT) and bile salt hydrolase (BSH) can protect bacteria from oxidative stress or damage caused by bile salts by decomposing hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) or deconjugating the bile salts, respectively. Lactobacillus
casei is a...