The markers which are correlated with the growth curve parameters help in understanding the characteristics of individual growth during the rearing of livestock. This study aimed to identify a set of biomarkers through a GWAS for growth curve parameters in crossbred chickens using the Illumnia 60K chicken SNP Beadchip. Growth data were collected from a total of 301 birds from cross of a broiler line and native chickens. Using the Gompertz–Laird model, two growth curve parameters, the instantaneous growth rate per day (L) and the coefficient of relative growth or maturing index (k), were estimated. The L and k were used to estimate five derived parameters, namely asymptotic (mature) body weight, body weight at inflection point, age at the

Heat stress, or hyperthermia, can have a serious effect on chicken performance in poultry industry in many parts of the world. Both genetics and environment play key role in the performance of a chicken and, therefore, it is important to consider both factors in addressing heat stress. On genetics level, genome-wide association studies have become a popular method for studying heat stress in recent years. A population of 202 F2 chickens was reared for 84 days to find genes and genomic regions affecting growth traits and immune system. But, due to unexpected acute increase in temperature at day 83, 182 birds died (case) and 20 birds remained alive (control). At the age of 70 days, blood sample of all birds was collected to extract their DNA,

In order to find SNPs and genes affecting shank traits, we performed a GWAS in a chicken F2 population of eight half‐sib families from five hatches derived from reciprocal crosses between an Arian fast‐growing line and an Urmia indigenous slow‐growing chicken. A total of 308 birds were genotyped using a 60K chicken SNP chip. Shank traits including shank length and diameter were measured weekly from birth to 12?weeks of age. A generalized linear model and a compressed mixed linear model (CMLM) were applied to achieve the significant regions. The value of the average genomic inflation factor (λ statistic) of the CMLM model (0.99) indicated that the CMLM was more effective than the generalized linear model in controlling the population

Four nonlinear models including Logistic, Gompertz-Laird, Richards, and von Bertalanffy were compared to achieve the best prediction of growth parameters describing the growth curve in a crossbred chicken population. Growth data (weekly body weights of chicken from birth to 84 days of age) were collected on 303 birds (174 females and 129 males) of F2 cross of the Arian line broiler chicken (Line B) and Urmia native chicken. Some statistical criteria such as Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), Corrected Akaike Information Criterion for small sample sizes (AICc), and Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) were used to find the best model. The results showed that the estimated values of the initial weight (W0) and final Weight (Wf) in male were

The aim of this study was the investigation of gene expression profile in Shal sheep ovarian tissue using RNA sequencing data. For this?purpose, the ovaries of five Shal sheep were isolated after estrous synchronization and their RNA was sequenced using Illumina Hiseq 4000?technology. On average, the data obtained from the sequencing consisted of 26638311 read pairs with 81.08 unique mapping rate. The results?of bioinformatic analyzes revealed the expression of 21085 genes in Shal sheep ovarian tissue, of which 15078 genes had expression mean?above 10. Gene ontology analysis revealed the significant enrichment of 162 GO terms including 41 biological processes, 46 molecular?functions and 75 cellular components. KEGG pathway analysis also ide

In recent years, metabolomics has been used to clarify the biology underlying biological samples. In the field of animal breeding, investigating the magnitude of genetic control on the metabolomic profiles of animals and their relationships with quantitative traits adds valuable information to animal improvement schemes. In this study, we analyzed metabolomic features (MFs) extracted from the metabolomic profiles of 843 male Holstein calves. The metabolomic profiles were obtained using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. We investigated two alternative methods to control for peak shifts in the NMR spectra, binning and aligning, to determine which approach was the most efficient for assessing genetic variance. Series of u

Immunity-related traits are heritable in chicken, therefore, it is possible to improve the inherent immunity by breeding programs. In this study using the Illumina chicken 60K single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) chip, we performed a set of genome-wide association studies to determine candidate genes and loci responsible for primary and secondary antibody-mediated responses against sheep red blood cell. A F2 population descended from a commercial meat-type breed and an Iranian indigenous chicken was used for this study. Statistical analysis was based on a mixed linear model utilizing genomic relationship matrix to prevent spurious associations. Correction for multiple testing was done by applying 5% and 10% chromosomal false discovery rat

In this study, 1973-2003 data of 12,328 animals from Abbasabad Baluchi Sheep Breeding Station, Iran, were used to estimate genetic and phenotypic correlations between Total Weight of lambs Weaned per Ewe Joined in the first, 2nd, 3rd and 4th lambing (TWW1/EJ, TWW2/EJ, TWW3/EJ, and TWW4/EJ, respectively), and TWW of the total four lambing (TWWt/EJ). Also, the study aimed to estimate correlations of TWW1/EJ... TWW4/EJ and Birth Weight (BW) as well as Weaning Weight (WW). The (co) variance components and genetic correlations were estimated by DFREML procedures. Genetic correlation between TWW1/EJ and TWWt/EJ was high and positive (0.76). Genetic correlations of

Metformin (MET) has received considerable attention in recent years for its anticancer potential activities. However, short half-life and weak bioavailability of MET limited its use as a chemotherapeutic agent. The present study is intended to evaluate the efficiency of PLGA-PEG as a nano-carrier for MET to increase anticancer effects on SKOV3 ovarian carcinoma cells. MET-loaded PLGA-PEG nanoparticles (NPs) were characterized through Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). Anti-proliferative and apoptotic effects of nanoformulated MET were evaluated using MTT and flow-cytometric assays, respectively. Also, real-time polymerase chain reaction (Re

Feed efficiency traits (FETs) are important economic indicators in poultry production. Because feed intake (FI) is a time-dependent variable, longitudinal models can provide insights into the genetic basis of FET variation over time. It is expected that the application of longitudinal models as part of genome-wide association (GWA) and genomic selection (i.e. genome-wide selection (GS)) studies will lead to an increase in accuracy of selection. Thus, the objectives of this study were to evaluate the accuracy of estimated breeding values (EBVs) based on pedigree as well as high-density single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotypes, and to conduct a GWA study on longitudinal FI and residual feed intake (RFI) in a total of 312 chickens with p

In order to identify loci associated with metabolic traits, a genome-wide association study (GWAS) was carried out in a chicken F2 population derived from a reciprocal cross between Iranian Uromia indigenous chickens and Arian broiler line using Illumina 60K Chicken SNP Beadchip.Six traits including plasma level of triglycerides (TG), cholesterol (Chol), glucose (Glu), total protein (TP), albumin (Alb) and globulin (Glo) were recorded. The association between the identified SNPs and metabolic traits was estimated by general linear model (GLM) and compressed mixed linear model (CMLM).A total of 38 SNPs were identified at the genome-wide significant and suggestive levels, of which five SNPs reached a 5% Bonferroni genome-wide significance (P

Using the Illumina 60k SNP chip panel, a genome-wide association study was carried out in order to identify genomic regions underlying lysozyme activity in chicken. Data were collected from an F 2 chicken population originated from reciprocal crosses between Arian broiler line and West Azerbaijan indigenous chicken strains. In this study, the lysozyme activity against Micrococus luteus bacteria, recorded as an indicator for innate immunity. Statistical analysis was based on fixed and mixed linear models to account for population stratifications and avoiding systematic biases generated from sex and hatch. Correction for multiple testing was done by applying a 10% genome-wise false discovery rates as significant threshold. Results showed that

Cell‐mediated immunity (CMI) causes the intracellular destruction of the antigen or elimination of the host cell to make animals resistant against exogenous antigens and cancers. In this study, a genome‐wide association study (GWAS) was carried out to identify genomic regions associated with CMI in chicken using chicken 60k high‐density single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array. Genomic relationships were taken into account to adjust for population structure. In order to account for multiple testing, chromosome‐wise false discovery rate was controlled at 5% and 10% levels. Moreover, a comparison of the power of fixed and mixed linear models based on genomic inflation factor was carried out. Mixed linear model (MLM) had better infl