We report the sequencing at 131× coverage, de novo assembly and analyses of the genome of a female Tibetan wild boar. We also resequenced the whole genomes of 30 Tibetan wild boars from six major ...distributed locations and 18 geographically related pigs in China. We characterized genetic diversity, population structure and patterns of evolution. We searched for genomic regions under selection, which includes genes that are involved in hypoxia, olfaction, energy metabolism and drug response. Comparing the genome of Tibetan wild boar with those of neighboring Chinese domestic pigs further showed the impact of thousands of years of artificial selection and different signatures of selection in wild boar and domestic pig. We also report genetic adaptations in Tibetan wild boar that are associated with high altitudes and characterize the genetic basis of increased salivation in domestic pig.
Gut microbiota play important roles in host health and diseases. Several factors, in particular antibiotics, affect the gut microbiota of pigs. Cross-fostering has been applied as a regular practice ...to equalize litter size, reduce pre-weaning mortality and increase body weight. However, the effect of cross-fostering on cecal microbiota is unclear. In this study, we fostered three Jinhua pigs to a Yorkshire sow. The fostered Jinhua piglets grew significantly faster than their biological siblings. To explore whether the cecal microbiota of piglets will alter during fostering, we characterized the cecal microbiota of all piglets by examining the V3 hypervariable region of 16S rDNA. We observed altered cecal microbiota in these piglets using the Illumina HiSeq 2000 platform, and this was accompanied with an increase in growth rate after fostering. The relative abundance of Bacteroidetes in the fostered Jinhua piglets was decreased compared with their biological siblings, although still higher in comparison with their new littermates. Beta-diversity analysis also showed that the cecal microbiota of the adopted Jinhua piglets differed from their biological siblings with a shift toward their step-siblings. Our data show that cecal microbiota of piglets were altered after cross-fostering while the growth rate increased.
•Unilateral ureteral obstruction (UUO) in the rat model led to type 4 cardio-renal syndrome (CRS).•Cardiac lymphangiogenesis and fibrosis were found to be associated with inflammatory damage caused ...by UUO.•Eplerenone slowed the progression of type 4 CRS by inhibiting inflammatory injury.
Cardiorenal syndrome (CRS) is the leading cause of death associated with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end-stage renal disease (ESRD). However, the underlying mechanisms of CRS are still poorly understood. Here, we studied a CKD model of unilateral ureteral obstruction (UUO) and observed pathological cardiac fibrosis and lymphangiogenesis in 180-day old UUO rats, in which inflammatory injury plays a major role. In addition, treatment of UUO rats with eplerenone, a mineralocorticoid receptor blocker (MRB), significantly reduced cardiac lymphangiogenesis and fibrosis. In conclusion, our experimental results showed that cardiac lymphangiogenesis in long-term UUO rats may be involved in the formation of cardiac fibrosis and that eplerenone can alleviate lymphangiogenesis and cardiac fibrosis by inhibiting inflammation.
