Search

Improved feed efficiency (FE) is one of the most important achievements in animal breeding programs. The present investigation aimed to determine the phenotypic correlations of residual feed intake (RFI) breeding value with some traits in growing Japanese quail. A total of 48 birds (24 males and 24 females) were selected from 220 quail chicks divided into three classes based on breeding values (BV) for RFI including low (LBV; n = 16), medium (MBV; n = 16), and high-BV (HBV; n = 16) were used to test FE. The effects of three groups of BV on the studied traits including carcass traits, meat quality, humoral immunity, and bone properties were evaluated. The BV for RFI was positively correlated with feed conversion ratio (FCR) and feed intake (FI) but not with metabolic BW (MBW 0.75 ). Live body weight, carcass, breast, and thigh weight in the LBV-RFI group were significantly greater than those in the HBV-RFI group. The BV for RFI had a negative correlation with live body weight and thigh weight. Our findings suggested that the selection of LBV-RFI quails may be useful to increase live body weight without any adverse impact on meat quality and bone properties, and live body weight can be implemented in breeding programs as an indirect selection indicator for improvement of FE in quails., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.)

Minimizing bird mortality in the commercial quail breeding industry is important from an economic and welfare perspective. Genetic and non-genetic factors can influence on the cumulative survival of the birds (CS). Accordingly, this study aimed to investigate non-genetic factors on CSs (cumulative survival of the birds from hatch to 5 (CS 1 ), 10 (CS 2 ), 15 (CS 3 ), 20 (CS 4 ), 25 (CS 5 ), 30 (CS 6 ), 35 (CS 7 ), 40 (CS 8 ), and 45 (CS 9 ) days of age), and estimation of the genetic parameters for CSs in crossbred population of quail. Data set included 1794 records from crossbred chicks hatched from 70 sires and 72 dams. The fixed effects were analyzed using an animal model by ASReml software, and all traits were analyzed using Bayesian method via Gibbs sampling by fitting of 6 threshold animal models including the direct genetic effect, the maternal permanent environmental effect, and the maternal genetic effect. The best fitted model for each trait was selected based on the deviance information criteria. Hatch number, the month of hatch, and combination of chickens showed a significant effect on CSs, but the sex of chickens does not have a significant effect on CSs. However, females have higher survival than males (except for CS 1 ). With the best model, the highest and lowest direct heritability was estimated for CS 5 (0.386) and CS 3 (0.250), respectively. The maternal genetic effect was significant for CS 1 , CS 2 , CS 3 , and CS 4 traits, but the maternal permanent environmental effect was significant only for CS 1 . The range of maternal heritability for CS 1 to CS 4 traits was estimated from 0.064 to 0.111, and ratio of the permanent environmental variance to phenotypic variance for CS 1 was 0.021. The result showed that increasing of the birds' survival could be performed by correcting non-genetic factors and genetic selection for CSs considering the maternal genetic effects in younger ages. HIGHLIGHTS: • In the commercial quail breeding industry, the bird mortality is important from an economic and welfare perspective. • Improving quail survival can be achieved by controlling the genetic and non-genetic factors affecting on survival, so knowledge of these factors is necessary. • The combination of crossbred chickens had a significant effect on cumulative survival traits. • The Cumulative survival traits in the crossbred population had relatively high genetic diversity, so genetic selection for these traits could be effective., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.)

The present study was conducted to evaluate aflatoxin B 1 (AFB 1 ) detoxification effects of some medicinal plants under both in vitro and in vivo. The in vitro experiment was performed with 25 treatments in 5 replications. The samples of medicinal plants were incubated with AFB 1 for 72 h, and the toxin residual in the supernatant was determined. The highest aflatoxin elimination was found to be related to peppermint (81%). Thereafter, in vivo experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of peppermint dried leaves, essential oil, and menthol on liver, bone, and meat, as well as the performance of growing Japanese quail fed diet contaminated with AFB 1 . A total of 640 7-day-old Japanese quails were assigned using a completely randomized design as 2 × 4 factorial arrangement with two levels of AFB 1 (including 0 and 2.5 mg/kg diet) and four treatments (including no additive; peppermint powder, 20 g/kg; peppermint essential oil, 800 mg/kg; and menthol powder, 400 mg/kg). Those birds fed AFB 1 -contaminated diet with no additives showed the worst liver health status by considering super oxide dismutase (P = 0.0399), glutathione peroxidase (P = 0.0139), alanine aminotransferase (P < 0.0001), and aspartate aminotransferase levels (P = 0.0512). However, the supplementation of AFB 1 contaminated diet with additives improved their liver health status. Menthol receiving birds showed the highest tibia strength, while the birds fed with AFB 1 -contaminated diet with no additives had the weakest bone strength (P < 0.0001). A significant increase was also observed in malondialdehyde level of meat by dietary inclusion of AFB 1 , which was well-repressed by the dietary supplementation of peppermint essential oil and menthol (P = 0.0075). Body weight gain dramatically decreased by adding AFB 1 to the diet, which was recovered with the dietary supplementation of additives (P = 0.0585). According to the results of the current study, peppermint and its derivatives can be used to suppress aflatoxin effects on the liver, bone, and meat quality and to improve the performance of Japanese quails., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.)

Non-additive genetic effects are important to increase the accuracy of estimating genetic parameters for growth traits. The aim of this study was to estimate genetic parameters and variance components, specially dominance and epistasis genetic effects, for growth traits (birth weight (BW), weaning weight (WW), 3 (W3), 6 (W6), 9 (W9), and 12 (W12) month weight) in Adani goats. Analyses were carried out using Bayesian method via Gibbs sampler animal model by fitting of 18 different models. All fixed effects (sex, type of birth, age of dam, and year) showed significant effects on BW, WW, W3, and W6, whereas the type of birth and age of dam were not significant on W9 and W12. With the best model, direct heritability estimates were 0.347, 0.178, 0.158, 0.359, 0.278, and 0.281 for BW, WW, W3, W6, W9, and W12 traits, respectively. Maternal permanent environmental effect was significant for BW and WW, but maternal genetic effect was significant only for W3. Dominance and epitasis effects were significant almost for all traits and as a proportion of phenotypic variance were ranged from 0.115 to 0.258 and 0.107 to 0.218, respectively. The range of accuracy of breeding values estimated for growth traits with appropriate evaluation models was from 0.521 to 0.652, 0.616 to 0.694, and 0.548 to 0.684 for the all animals, 10% of the best males and 50% of the best females, respectively. When dominance and epistasis effects added to models, the error variance was reduced and the accuracy of estimated breeding values increased. The accuracy of the best model showed a significant difference with the accuracy of other models (p < 0.01). The result of the present study suggests that non-additive genetic effects should be in genetic evaluation models for goat growth traits because of its effect on accuracy of estimated breeding values.

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is considered to be one of the most invasive human cancers, characterized by a high mortality rate and an average survival is <1 year. These tumors are highly aggressive and insensitive to conventional radio and chemotherapy. An interesting aspect of glioblastoma is the association of active human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection, which is evident by the presence of viral DNA, mRNA and protein level in most glioblastoma tissues. Although the presence of the HCMV infection in glioblastoma is well established, but the oncomodulatory role of HCMV is not defined yet. Enhancer of zeste human homolog 2 (EZH2) is a key protein of the polycomb repressive complex 2, epigenetic gene silencers. There have been several reports that EZH2 activity is essential in GBM pathogenesis. In our previous research, we have found a high rate of HCMV infection in a cohort of Iranian glioblastoma patients. In this study, we investigated the expression of EZH2 in HCMV-negative versus HCMV-positive GBM tissues in comparison to non-tumor tissues. The level of expression was determined by real time PCR and the differences were calculated using the Livac or 2(-ΔΔCt) and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Relative expression of EZH2 in HCMV-negative glioblastoma tissues were increased 6.053-fold compared to non-neoplastic brain tissues, while EZH2 gene expression was increased 41.098-fold in HCMV-positive glioblastoma tissues. ANOVA test showed that there is a significant difference in EZH2 expression between normal brain tissue, HCMV-negative and HCMV-positive glioblastoma tumors (p value = 0.0001). Our data indicate that EZH2 expression can be considered a risk factor in glioblastoma and EZH2 inhibitors may serve as potential new treatment in glioblastoma. This would be an interesting new field to investigate in more detail.

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), a WHO grade IV malignant glioma, is the most common and lethal primary brain tumor in adults and has but few treatments. The median survival of glioblastoma patients is 12 months. The (possible) relationship between human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection and cancer has been investigated for decades. Detection of viral DNA, mRNA and/or antigens in tumor tissues suggests that HCMV infection has a role to play in the etiology of several human malignancies. HCMV gene products can promote the various signaling pathways critical to tumor growth, including platelet derived growth factor receptor, phosphatidyl inositol 3-kinases (PI3K/AKT), signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 and glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta that are involved in apoptosis, angiogenesis, invasion and immune evasion. Insulin-like growth factor binding protein 2 (IGFBP2) is a biomarker of the PI3K/AKT pathway so we decided to evaluate the expression of this gene in 3 groups: HCMV-negative GBM tissues, HCMV-positive GBM tissues and non-tumor tissues. The presence of HCMV was assessed according to our previous article. HCMV was present in %75 of glioblastoma tissues. Then RNA was extracted, cDNA was synthesized, and real-time PCR was performed. Then, the rate of increased expression was calculated using the Livac or 2(-ΔΔCt). ΔCt of samples in the three groups were compared using analysis of variance (ANOVA). The expression of IGFBP2 gene relative to GAPDH gene in HCMV-negative glioblastoma tissues and HCMV-positive glioblastoma tissues, respectively, was increased 5.486 and 15.032 times compared to non-neoplastic brain tissues. ANOVA tests showed that the difference of mean ΔCt for IGFBP2 gene between healthy subjects and patients with HCMV-positive and HCMV-negative glioblastoma tumors statistically significant.