Cashmere Fiber Research Articles

Effects of melatonin administration to cashmere goats on cashmere production and hair follicle characteristics in two consecutive cashmere growth cycles

The objective of the study was to determine the long-term effects of melatonin treatment on cashmere production and hair follicle populations in cashmere goats and their activity in two consecutive cashmere growth cycles. Twenty-four female Inner Mongolian Cashmere goats were randomly allocated to two groups (n = 12), one of which received melatonin implants, the other being an untreated control group. Melatonin implants were subcutaneously inserted behind the ear at a dose of 2 mg/kg live weight on two occasions –April 30 and June 30, 2016. Hair samples were collected by combing in April of 2017 and 2018, and the weight, staple length, and diameter of the cashmere fibers were measured. Blood and skin samples were collected monthly between April and September 2016, and in April and September in 2017 for the analysis of melatonin concentration and the characteristics of secondary hair follicle populations, respectively. The results indicated that serum melatonin concentration in the treated goats was elevated (P < 0.05) relative to that of the control group, but only during the first growth cycle. Melatonin treatment of cashmere goats in one cashmere growth cycle increased the weight, staple length, and density (all P < 0.05) of the cashmere fibers and decreased fiber diameter (P < 0.01), but did not affect the characteristics of cashmere production in the subsequent annual cycle. Melatonin treatment had no effect on the population of skin secondary hair follicles for two consecutive cycles. However, in the first growth cycle after treatment, it advanced the onset of activity of skin secondary hair follicles by 2 mo (P < 0.05), and it increased the number of follicles that were active (P < 0.05). In summary, the melatonin treatment of cashmere goats in one cashmere growth cycle improved cashmere production for that cycle only, with no residual effects on the subsequent cycle, a technique acceptable to the cashmere goat industry. The enhancement of cashmere production after the treatment of goats with melatonin appears to involve the acceleration of the annual regeneration of skin secondary hair follicles and increased population of active secondary hair follicles in the skin of cashmere goats.

Drying kinetics and mechanical properties of low temperature microwave dried cashmere fibers

Drying behavior of low temperature microwave vacuum–dried cashmere fibers and the drying rate at different times were investigated with different microwave powers, vacuum degrees and maximum drying temperatures to specify the optimum drying conditions in consideration of performance and drying efficiency in this study. The results show that higher microwave power can reduce the total drying time and significantly increase the drying rate in the initial stage. The degree of vacuum has a negligible effect on the drying behavior, and the influence of the three factors on effective moisture diffusivity is consistent with the drying behavior. Compared with hot-air-dried fibers, the mechanical properties of low temperature microwave-dried cashmere fibers could be significantly improved. In addition, excessive drying as delayed or overheated treatment will damage the fiber. The Page model is the most appropriate to describe the microwave vacuum drying of cashmere fibers.

Superhydrophobic modification and characterization of cashmere fiber surfaces by wet coating techniques of silica nanoparticles

Superhydrophobic SiO2 nanoparticle ultra-thin film was fabricated on the surface of cashmere fabric via dip coating method utilizing acetic acid and acidic water. The as-obtained cashmere fabric was characterized by SEM and FTIR analysis, and wetting behavior was determined with contact angle measurement. The stain resistance, pilling and colorfastness grade were also evaluated. Contact angle measurement revealed that cashmere fabric attained a superhydrophobic behavior with a contact angle greater than 150°.The silica nanoparticles were grafted onto surface of cashmere fabric successfully as indicated by the FTIR measurement. Colorfastness and pilling grade were improved in the surface coated cashmere; therefore, the coating process did not impose the adverse effects on the quality of the cashmere fabrics.

First assessment of the double coated produced by goats raised in Brazil

Abstract Brazilian Goats have double hair coat composed of two fibres, coarse guard hair and fibre fine. The objective was to characterize the fibres and check if the fine fibre meets the standards for cashmere. We collected samples in Saanen, Alpine and Crossbreed goats. The analysis in scanning electron microscopy revealed that these individuals had fibre fine with an average diameter of 10.63 μm and coefficient of variation of 17.39 %, which is within the diameter range to be considered cashmere. The fibre fine had frequency scale of 7.57/100 μm and thickness of scale 383 nm. The results led to the recognition of cashmere fibres in goats born and raised in Brazil.

The Application of Deep and Transfer Learning for Identifying Cashmere and Wool Fibers

ABSTRACT Identification of wool and cashmere fibers is one of the most important topics in the textile industry. In order to recognize these similar fibers, a novel identification method based on the convolution neural network and deep learning was proposed in this paper. As we all know, training a new identification network commonly requires lots of sample images and needs an amount of time, so the transfer learning was adopted for the fiber identification. The four pre-trained convolution neural networks, which consist of AlexNet, VGG-16, VGG-19, GoogLeNet, were used for the transfer learning to identify these similar fibers. Then, 65 fiber images of four kinds of fiber samples including goat hair, yellow wool, sheep wool, and cashmere fibers, were collected, respectively, and processed by the methods including random interception and rotation to obtain a total of 390 fiber images, respectively, for the experiment analysis. After comparing different network models, the results showed that the highest identification accuracy was 99.15%, obtained by the VGG-16 transfer learning model and the proportion of training set to testing set was 7:3. In addition, compared with the traditional machine learning algorithmics, this method also had a great improvement in the model performance and identification accuracy.

LncRNA-599554 sponges miR-15a-5p to contribute inductive ability of dermal papilla cells through positive regulation of the expression of Wnt3a in cashmere goat

Abstract Background Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), as post-transcriptional regulators, were thought to function in the inductive property of dermal papilla cells (DPCs) in cashmere goat. Previously, lncRNA-599554 was identified in secondary hair follicle (SHF) of cashmere goat, but its functional significance is unknown. Results In the present investigation, we verified that lncRNA-599554 had significantly higher expression at the anagen dermal papilla of cashmere goat SHF than that at telogen. Based on overexpression and knockdown techniques, we found that lncRNA-599554 contributes the inductive property of DPCs of cashmere goat, which was assessed by detecting the changes in the expression of several typical indictor genes in DPCs including ET-1, SCF, Versican, ALP, Lef1 and Ptc-1. Based on RNA pull-down assay, we verified that lncRNA-599554 directly interacted with chi-miR-15a-5p. Also, we showed that lncRNA-599554 positively regulated the Wnt3a expression in DPCs but which did not appear to involve its modulating of promoter methylation. Based on the use of Dual-luciferase reporter assays, our data indicated that lncRNA-599554 regulated the Wnt3a expression through chi-miR-15a-5p-mediated post-transcriptional level. Conclusions We showed that lncRNA-599554 contributes the inductive property of DPCs in cashmere goat which might be achieved through sponging chi-miR-15b-5p to promote the Wnt3a expression. The results from the present investigation provided a novel insight into the functional mechanism of lncRNA-599554 in the SHF regeneration of cashmere goat along with the formation and growth of cashmere fiber. How to cite: Yin RH, Wang YR, Zhao SJ, et al. LncRNA-599554 sponges miR-15a-5p to contribute inductive ability of dermal papilla cells through positive regulation of the expression of Wnt3a in cashmere goat. Electron J Biotechnol 2020;45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejbt.2020.03.002

Effect of Low Temperature Microwave Drying on Properties of Dyed Cashmere Fibers

A novel method of drying dyed cashmere fiber by low temperature microwave was proposed and investigated in this paper, the effect of low temperature microwave drying on the properties of dyed cashmere fiber was characterized and discussed in details. The results showed that the mechanical properties of cashmere after vacuum microwave drying were improved, and the highest rise of elongation at break was more than 6 %. The directional friction effect was weakened, and the maximum DFE loss was more than 40 % compared with that of steam-dried cashmere. The scales were damaged, while molecular structure and chemical bonds of cashmere fibers have not changed. Vacuum and microwave combined drying method can dry dyed cashmere at low temperature quickly, which has considerable advantages compared with traditional drying, and shows great potential for eco-friendly production of cashmere.

M6A Methylation Analysis of Differentially Expressed Genes in Skin Tissues of Coarse and Fine Type Liaoning Cashmere Goats.

N6-methyladenosine (m6A) is the most common internal modification in mRNAs of all higher eukaryotes. Here we perform two high-throughput sequencing methods, m6A-modified RNA immunoprecipitation sequence (MeRIP-seq) and RNA sequence (RNA-seq) to identify key genes with m6A modification in cashmere fiber growth. A total of 9,085 m6A sites were differentially RNA m6A methylated as reported from by MeRIP-seq, including 7,170 upregulated and 1,915 downregulated. In addition, by comparing m6A-modified genes between the fine-type Liaoning cashmere goat (FT-LCG) and coarse-type Liaoning Cashmere Goat (CT-LCG) skin samples, we obtain 1,170 differentially expressed genes. In order to identify the differently methylated genes related to cashmere fiber growth, 19 genes were selected to validate by performing qRT-PCR in FT-LCG and CT-LCG. In addition, GO enrichment analysis shows that differently methylated genes are mainly involved in keratin filament and intermediate filament. These findings provide a theoretical basis for future research on the function of m6A modification during the growth of cashmere fiber.

Identification of Caprine KRTAP28-1 and Its Effect on Cashmere Fiber Diameter.

The keratin-associated proteins (KAPs) are constituents of cashmere fibers and variation in many KAP genes (KRTAPs) has been found to be associated with fiber traits. The gene encoding the high-sulphur KAP28-1 has been described in sheep, but it has not been identified in the goat genome. In this study, a 255-bp open reading frame on goat chromosome 1 was identified using a search of similar sequence to ovine KRTAP28-1, and that would if transcribed and translated encode a high sulphur KAP. Based on the analysis of polymerase chain reaction amplicons for the goat nucleotide sequences in 385 Longdong cashmere goats in China, five unique banding patterns were detected using single strand conformation polymorphism analysis. These represented five DNA sequences (named variants A to E) and they had the highest resemblance to KRTAP28-1 sequences from sheep, suggesting A–E are variants of caprine KRTAP28-1. DNA sequencing revealed a 2 or 4-bp deletion and eleven nucleotide sequence differences, including four non-synonymous substitutions. Of the four common variants (A, B, C and D) found in these goats, the presence of variant A was associated with decreased mean fiber diameter and this effect appeared to be additive. These results indicate that caprine KRTAP28-1 variation might have value as a molecular marker for reducing cashmere mean fiber diameter.

Effect of melatonin administration to lactating cashmere goats on milk production of dams and on hair follicle development in their offspring

Melatonin treatment in adult cashmere goats can increase cashmere yield and improve cashmere fibre quality by inducing cashmere growth during cashmere non-growth period, of which time cashmere goats are in the mid and late stages of lactation. However, whether melatonin treatment in adult cashmere goats affects their offspring’s growth performance remains unknown. Therefore, the objectives of the current study were to determine the effects of melatonin treatment in adult cashmere goats on cashmere and milk production performance in dams and on hair follicle development and subsequent cashmere production in their offspring. Twenty-four lactating Inner Mongolian Cashmere goat dams (50 ± 2 days in milk, mean ± SD) and their single-born female offspring (50 ± 2 days old, mean ± SD) were randomly assigned to one of two groups supplemented with melatonin implants (MEL; n = 12) or without (CON; n = 12). The melatonin implants were subcutaneously implanted behind the ear at a dose of 2 mg/kg live weight on two occasions – 30 April and 30 June 2016. The results demonstrated that melatonin treatment in adult cashmere goats increased cashmere production and improved cashmere fibre quality as indicated by greater cashmere yield, longer cashmere fibre staple length, finer cashmere fibre diameter and thicker cashmere fibre density. The milk fat content was higher in MEL compared with CON cashmere goats. The daily yields of milk production, milk protein and milk lactose were lower in MEL compared with CON cashmere goats. Serum melatonin concentrations were greater, serum prolactin concentrations were lower and milk melatonin concentrations and yields were greater in MEL compared with CON cashmere goats. With regard to offspring, there were no differences in cashmere yield, fibre staple length, fibre diameter and fibre density at yearling combing, and the primary and secondary hair follicles population and maturation between treatments. In conclusion, melatonin treatment in adult cashmere goats during cashmere non-growth period is a practical and an effective way in cashmere industry as indicated by not only increasing cashmere yield and improving cashmere fibre quality in adult cashmere goat dams but also having no impairment in hair follicle development and the subsequent cashmere production in their single-born offspring.

Rapid drying-free determination of pure cashmere content in scoured cashmere using a novel method of NIR spectroscopy combined with moisture elimination and spectral reconstruction strategy

Pure cashmere content (PCC) is a key parameter for assessing the quality of scoured cashmere. The traditional manual analytical method is quite laborious and time-consuming. A novel method has been developed by using near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy combined with chemometrics and other mathematical methods. The accuracy of PCC calibration model, which is of great importance in practical application, remains a challenge due to the fact that the NIR diffuse reflectance spectra of scoured cashmere are badly influenced by absorbed moisture and light scattering. To improve the prediction accuracy, moisture elimination was first adopted to decrease the adverse effect of moisture on the spectra by subtracting the spectral contribution of water from the raw spectra. Spectral reconstruction was subsequently designed to take full advantage of the information contained in the residual values obtained after multiplicative scatter correction (MSC) pretreatment to retrieve the light scatter signal correlated with the physical properties of pure cashmere. Both the above two methods can improve the prediction performance of the partial least-squares regression (PLSR) model, and their combination can achieve the optimal model with root mean of square error of prediction (RMSEP) of 5.18 %, which satisfy the accuracy requirement for PCC measurement. The proposed method is rapid, low-cost, and environment-friendly for evaluating the quality of scoured cashmere fibers and shed light on the NIR-based analysis of the complex systems with valuable physical information.

Automatic identification of cashmere and wool fibers based on the morphological features analysis

Identification of wool and cashmere extremely similar fibers is always an important topic in the textile industry. In order to solve this problem much better, a novel fiber identification method based on the extraction and analysis of the morphological features was proposed in this paper. Firstly, the original fiber images were captured by the self-developed system including the optical microscope and digital camera. The influence of the acquisition process may lead to the low contrast and impurities, so the original fiber images needed to be processed by the image enhancement and de-noise to obtain the available fiber images with a better quality. Then the hessian matrix of processed images was put into the Frangi filter to detect the edge of the fiber scales, and the binary images of filter output images were processed to obtain the signal-pixel scale skeleton. The connected region labeling algorithm can be adopted for the scale skeleton images to mark and extract every scale from the whole fiber according to the different color information. Next, the three morphological features including scale height, fiber diameter and their ratio can be calculated by the self-defined vertical line rotation analysis method, and the mean value of five different scales was calculated as the final features to describe one fiber. In the experiment, 500 fiber cashmere and 500 wool fiber images were collected for the whole research, and a Bayesian classification model for identifying wool and cashmere fibers was established based on the statistical assumptions of three morphological characteristics. The results show that the identification accuracy of the method proposed in this paper could reached the 94.2%. It also proves that this novel method can be used for the identification of cashmere and wool extremely similar animal fibers.

Discovery and molecular analysis of conserved circRNAs from cashmere goat reveal their integrated regulatory network and potential roles in secondary hair follicle

Abstract Background Circular RNAs, a novel class in the eukaryotic transcriptome, are characterized by the 3′ and 5′ ends that are covalently joined in a covalently closed loop without free ends. Circular RNAs are considerably stable molecules and act as microRNA sponges with regulatory potential to the protein-coding genes. Results Eight circular RNAs were found to be significantly upregulated at anagen skin tissue of cashmere goat compared with their counterparts at telogen. Rich and complex regulatory patterns were revealed among the eight upregulated circular RNAs at anagen and related miRNAs with their potential regulatory genes. The potential regulatory genes of eight upregulated circular RNAs at anagen were involved in several pathways related to the main physiological process of hair follicle, such as histone acetylation and axon. For chi_circ_1926, chi_circ_3541, chi_circ_0483, chi_circ_3196, and chi_circ_2092, overall, the relative expression in secondary hair follicle exhibited highly similar trends with their corresponding host genes during the different stages of the hair follicle cycle. However, the expression trends of chi_circ_0100, chi_circ_2829, and chi_circ_1967 were found to diverge from their corresponding host genes during the different stages of the hair follicle cycle. Conclusions A total of eighteen circular RNAs were identified and characterized from skin tissue of cashmere goat. The eight upregulated circular RNAs at anagen might have significant roles in the secondary hair follicle of cashmere goat. Our results would provide a novel regulatory layer to elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying the development of secondary hair follicle and the growth of cashmere fiber in cashmere goat. How to cite: Yin R, Wang Y, Wang Z, et al. Discovery and molecular analysis of conserved circRNAs from cashmere goat reveal their integrated regulatory network and potential roles in secondary hair follicle. Electron J Biotechnol 2019;41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejbt.2019.06.004 .

Textile Fiber Identification Using Near-Infrared Spectroscopy and Pattern Recognition

Abstract Fibers are raw materials used for manufacturing yarns and fabrics, and their properties are closely related to the performances of their derivatives. It is indispensable to implement fiber identification in analyzing textile raw materials. In this paper, seven common fibers, including cotton, tencel, wool, cashmere, polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polylactic acid (PLA), and polypropylene (PP), were prepared. After analyzing the merits and demerits of the current methods used to identify fibers, near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy was used owing to its significant superiorities, the foremost of which is it can capture the tiny information differences in chemical compositions and morphological features to display the characteristic spectral curve of each fiber. First, the fibers’ spectra were collected, and then, the relationships between the vibrations of characteristic chemical groups and the corresponding wavelengths were researched to organize a spectral information library that would be beneficial to achieve quick identification and classification. Finally, to achieve intelligent detection, pattern recognition approaches, including principal component analysis (PCA) (used to extract information of interest), soft independent modeling of class analogy (SIMCA), and linear discrimination analysis (LDA) (defined using two classifiers), assisted in accomplishing fiber identification. The experimental results – obtained by combining PCA and SIMCA – displayed that five of seven target fibers, namely, cotton, tencel, PP, PLA, and PET, were distributed with 100% recognition rate and 100% rejection rate, but wool and cashmere fibers yielded confusing results and led to relatively low recognition rate because of the high proportion of similarities between these two fibers. Therefore, the six spectral bands of interest unique to wool and cashmere fibers were selected, and the absorbance intensities were imported into the classifier LDA, where wool and cashmere were group-distributed in two different regions with 100% recognition rate. Consequently, the seven target fibers were accurately and quickly distinguished by the NIR method to guide the fiber identification of textile materials.

IGF-1 Gene Polymorphism and its Association with Cashmere Fiber Trait in Changthangi Goats

ABSTRACT The Cashmere (Pashmina) fiber attracts great demand worldwide for its fineness. To identify and determine the role of Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1) gene polymorphism on Pashmina fiber traits (quality and quantity), exon IV, and part of intron IV of the IGF-1 gene of Changthangi goats were analyzed. 103 Changthangi goats of either sex were divided into two groups, the high producers and low producers of Pashmina. Upon restriction digestion with HaeIII, three genotypes were identified, i.e., A1A1 (0.253), A2A2 (0.320), and A1A2 (0.427). These genotypes did not vary significantly (p > .05) from Hardy–Weinberg Equilibrium. DNA sequence analysis revealed G > C transversion in intron-IV of IGF-1 gene at the HaeIII restriction site. The SNP effect of two alleles on mean Cashmere fiber diameter of down fibers (MFD) was statistically significant (p < .05) and the average finest fiber diameter was 13.46 µ for genotype A2A2. The mean genetic variability parameters for the gene analyzed were heterozygosity value (0.4977), PIC Value (0.3738), Effective allele no (1.9908),and Shannon index I (0.6908). The significant association of IGF-1 gene polymorphism and fiber finesse can be exploited in breeding programmes to improve the production and quality of Pashmina fiber in goat populations.

Melatonin promotes secondary hair follicle development of early postnatal cashmere goat and improves cashmere quantity and quality by enhancing antioxidant capacity and suppressing apoptosis.

Development of secondary hair follicles in early postnatal cashmere goats may be adversely affected by reactive oxygen species which cause oxidative stress. Because melatonin is a potent antioxidant and scavenger of free radicals, this study explored the effects of melatonin on secondary hair follicle development and subsequent cashmere production. It was found that the initiation of new secondary follicles in early postnatal Inner Mongolian cashmere goats of both melatonin-treated and control goats occurred in the first 10weeks of age. Melatonin promoted the initiation and maturation of secondary follicles and increased their population. Importantly, the beneficial effect of melatonin on secondary follicle population remained throughout life. As a result, melatonin increased cashmere production and improved its quality in terms of reduced fiber diameter. The mechanisms underlying the role of melatonin on secondary follicle development included the enhancement of activities of antioxidant enzymes, for example, superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), elevated total antioxidant capacity, and upregulated anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 expression and downregulated expression of the pro-apoptotic proteins, Bax and caspase-3. These results reveal that melatonin serves to promote secondary hair follicle development in early postnatal cashmere goats and expands our understanding of melatonin application in cashmere production. Melatonin treatment led to an increase in both the quantity and quality of cashmere fiber. This increased the textile value of the fibers and provided economic benefit.

THE COMPARISON OF PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ANATOLIAN NATIVE GOAT DOWN FIBERS WITH CASHMERE

Very fine and soft down-hair fibers of native goats can have a potential as a valuable raw-material source for high quality products. Therefore, down-hair fibers were collected from native goats raised in different regions of Turkey, then their physical properties were analyzed and results were compared with cashmere fibers. Along with mean fiber diameter and its variation, single fiber length and its variation, which are the most important parameters regarding spinnability of a textile fiber, this work reports for the first time fiber scale characteristics of Anatolian native goat down-hair fibers. In this respect, scale pattern, mean scale frequency, cuticle scale height, curvature, crimp frequency were analyzed as well as fiber tenacity and breaking elongation properties. The economical potential of these down-hair fibers in Turkey were also investigated. The results show that these native goat down-hair fibers, that have been wasted mostly, have very similar properties to cashmere fibers with adequate properties for spinnability, hence they have potential for high-quality textile products as a substitute for cashmere fiber.

Variation in the caprine keratin-associated protein 15-1 (KAP15-1) gene affects cashmere fibre diameter.

Keratin-associated proteins (KAPs) are a structural component of cashmere fibre, and variation in some KAP genes (KRTAPs) has been associated with a number of caprine fibre traits. In this study, we report the identification of KRTAP15-1 in goats. Sequence variation in the gene was detected using the polymerase chain reaction single-strand conformation polymorphism (PCR-SSCP) technique in 250 Longdong goats, and six variants (named A to F) containing eight single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were identified. Five of the SNPs were non-synonymous and would lead to putative amino acid changes. Reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis revealed that KRTAP15-1 was expressed in secondary hair follicles but not in heart tissue, liver tissue, lung tissue, kidney tissue or the longissimus dorsi muscle. Despite being rich in cysteine, the caprine KAP15-1 protein possesses a high content of serine and moderate content of glycine and phenylalanine. Association analyses revealed that KRTAP15-1 variant A was associated with decreased mean fibre diameter (MFD), and this effect appeared to be dominant; while variant C was found to be associated with increased MFD, the effect being recessive. The findings suggest that caprine KRTAP15-1 is highly polymorphic and that variation in this gene affects cashmere MFD.

Analysis of coat quality of Chinchilla rabbit breed

Article Details: Received: 2018-10-25 | Accepted: 2018-11-27 | Available online: 2019-01-31 https://doi.org/10.15414/afz.2019.22.01.17-20 Between breeders, Chinchilla rabbit is very popular as it has standard body shape and high quality of typically coloured fur. The aim of this study was to analyse quality of Chinchilla rabbit fur. Coat samples were gathered at the National Animal Exhibition in Nitra. We collected samples from three different body areas – those being scapula, back and thigh. Altogether, we obtained 153 samples of different individual animals. We observed different parameters of the fur. Those were – thickness and length of coat, height and width of the undercolour, ticking and height of the guard hair. We found out that average thickness of coat in the examined population was 0.106 mm in the area of scapula; 0.104 mm in the thigh area and 0.113 mm from the back area. Length of the guard hair from area of scapula was 35.8 mm; 37.9 mm in the thigh area and 36.4 mm in the back area. Height of the undercolour was 26.9 mm in the back area, 26.4 mm in area of scapula and 27.6 mm in the area of thighs. Observed width of intermediate colour was 5.1 mm in thigh area; 4.3 mm in back area and 4.8 mm in scapula area. Measured height of terminal black line of hair was 4.7 mm in area of scapula; 5.3 mm in the back area and 5.3 mm in thigh area. The differences among the evaluated body areas were not significant. Keywords: fur, quality, hair, rabbit, Chinchilla References BRUMWELL, W. (1928) The Chinchilla Rabbit – Its Breeding For Profit. Bradford: Wathmous. COVRIG, I. et al. (2013) The C locus: rabbit genetics for full color development, chinchilla, seal, sable, pointed black and red-eyed full white. Rabbit Genetics, vol. 3, no. 1. DAHIYA, M.S., YADAV, S.K. (2013) Scanning Electron Microscopic Characterization and Elemental Analysis of Hair: A Tool in Identification of Felidae Animals. J Forensic Res, vol. 4, no. 1, p. 178. DEEDRICK, D.W., KOCH, S. (2004) Microscopy of Hair Part II: A Practical Guide and Manual for Animal Hairs. Forensic science communications, vol. 6, no. 3. FIK, M. et al. (2011) Assessment of wire haired dachshund hair quality. Acta fytotechnica et zootechnica, vol. 14, pp. 81–84 (in Slovak). FRANCK, R.R. (2001) Silk, Mohair, Cashmere and Other Luxury Fibres. UK: Woodhead Publishing Limited in association with The Textile Institute, pp. 136–137. HUANG, D.W. et al. (2016) Location of genes associated with hair length of rabbit. In Proceedings 11th World Rabbit Congress. Qingdao – China 15–18. 6. 2016. WorldChina: Rabbit Science Association. KOPAŃSKI, R. (1965) Elementary of furriers. Warszawa: Panstwowe wydawnictwo rolnicze i leśne (in Polish). MAMOJKOVA, E. (2012) Evaluation of the breeding level of Little Chinchilla in Slovakia: bachelor thesis. Nitra: SPU (in Slovak). MAMOJKOVA, E. (2014) Evaluation of quality of hairs and coat in Little Chinchilla rabbit breed: Diploma thesis. Nitra: SPU (in Slovak). MENGUC, G. et al. (2014) Physical Properties of Angora Rabbit Fibers. American Journal of Materials Engineering and Technology, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 11–13. ROGERS, A.D. et al. (2006). Fiber Production and Properties in Genetically Furred and Furless Rabbits. Journal of Animal Science, vol. 84, pp. 2566–2574. VERHOEF-VERHALLENOVA, E. (2000) Encyclopedia of rabbits and rhodents. Cestlice: Rebo Productions (in Czech). ZHANG, Y. et al. (2011) Structure Structural Characteristics of Rabbit Hair. Trans Tech Publications, vol. 332–334, pp. 1073–1076.

Expression of lipid-protein gene PLP2 in Liaoning cashmere goat

The relationship between PLP2 gene and cashmere fiber quality of Liaoning cashmere goat was investigated. The sheep fibroblast cells were treated with exogenous cytokines and melatonin, independently, and RNA interference, RT-PCR and in situ hybridization were utilized for investigating the PLP2 gene regulation mechanism underlying the Liaoning cashmere growth. The results showed that the expression of PLP2 gene in the prosperous and degenerative stage is higher than that of the primary follicle, indicating that the PLP2 gene promotes the secondary follicle, wherein the gene is expressed only in the inner root sheath, suggesting its correlation to hair loss. The results of RT-PCR showed that the trend of FGF5 expression in PLP2 gene was positively regulated. The influence of MT on the expression of PLP2 gene was negatively regulated, and the inhibition was gradually enhanced with the passage of time. Studies have confirmed that the Noggin gene is an inhibitor of the BMP signaling pathway. After the noggin gene interferes with the lentivirus infection, the expression of the PLP2 gene is downregulated. Therefore, the PLP2 gene, along with the other suppressor genes including the noggin gene, might affect the development of hair follicles by inhibiting the BMP（Bone morphogenetic proteins）pathway.