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Background: The electrocardiography is a useful diagnostic tool for the characterization of the cardiac rhythm in veterinary medicine. In cattle, standard electrocardiographic exam is commonly performed using the base-apex lead system and reference values for ECG parameters have been reported for different breed of cows. However, no electrocardiographic studies have been conducted in Chianina breed. Aim: To determine the feasibility and normal values for standard base-apex electrocardiography in clinically healthy Chianina cows. Methods: A standard base-apex electrocardiographic examination was acquired in 45 Chianina cows. All the cows were considered healthy based on history and physical examination. The following ECG parameters were evaluated: heart rate; morphology of P wave, QRS complex and T wave; amplitude and duration of P wave, QRS complex, and T wave; duration of PR and QT intervals. Correlations between ECG parameters and clinical variables were analyzed. Results: Morphology of the electrocardiographic waves/complexes and values for all ECG parameters recorded in the 45 clinically healthy Chianina cows were reported. Correlations between heart rate and body weight, QT interval and body weight, QT interval and heart rate, P wave amplitude and heart rate, PR interval and heart rate, R wave amplitude and age were observed. Statistical difference between heart rate in pregnant and not-pregnant cows was also found. Conclusion: Base-apex electrocardiogram is suitable for monitoring heart rhythm in clinically healthy Chianina cows and reference values for main electrocardiographic parameters have been reported for this breed. This study can be a useful contribution to the literature, updating current knowledge on the electrocardiography in cattle.

In the last decades, several endangered breeds of livestock species have been re-established effectively. However, the successful revival of the Dutch and Danish Landrace goats involved crossing with exotic breeds and the ancestry of the current populations is therefore not clear. We have generated genotypes for 27 FAO-recommended microsatellites of these landraces and three phenotypically similar Nordic-type landraces and compared these breeds with central European, Mediterranean and south-west Asian goats. We found decreasing levels of genetic diversity with increasing distance from the south-west Asian domestication site with a south-east-to-north-west cline that is clearly steeper than the Mediterranean east-to-west cline. In terms of genetic diversity, the Dutch Landrace comes next to the isolated Icelandic breed, which has an extremely low diversity. The Norwegian coastal goat and the Finnish and Icelandic landraces are clearly related. It appears that by a combination of mixed origin and a population bottleneck, the Dutch and Danish Land-races are separated from the other breeds. However, the current Dutch and Danish populations with the multicoloured and long-horned appearance effectively substitute for the original breed, illustrating that for conservation of cultural heritage, the phenotype of a breed is more relevant than pure ancestry and the genetic diversity of the original breed. More in general, we propose that for conservation, the retention of genetic diversity of an original breed and of the visual phenotype by which the breed is recognized and defined needs to be considered separately., Stichting Zeldzame Huisdierassen

Background\ud During the past decades, neutral DNA markers have been extensively employed to study demography, population genetics and structure in livestock, but less interest has been devoted to the evaluation of livestock adaptive potential through the identification of genomic regions likely to be under natural selection.\ud \ud Methodology/Principal findings\ud Landscape genomics can greatly benefit the entire livestock system through the identification of genotypes better adapted to specific or extreme environmental conditions. Therefore we analyzed 101 AFLP markers in 43 European and Western Asian goat breeds both with Matsam software, based on a correlative approach (SAM), and with Mcheza and Bayescan, two FST based software able to detect markers carrying signatures of natural selection.\ud \ud Matsam identified four loci possibly under natural selection – also confirmed by FST-outlier methods – and significantly associated with environmental variables such as diurnal temperature range, frequency of precipitation, relative humidity and solar radiation.\ud \ud Conclusions/Significance\ud These results show that landscape genomics can provide useful information on the environmental factors affecting the adaptive potential of livestock living in specific climatic conditions. Besides adding conservation value to livestock genetic resources, this knowledge may lead to the development of novel molecular tools useful to preserve the adaptive potential of local breeds during genetic improvement programs, and to increase the adaptability of industrial breeds to changing environments.

Background SNP data of goats of three Mediterranean countries were used for population studies and reconstruction of geographical patterning. 496 individuals belonging to Italian, Albanian and Greek breeds were genotyped to assess the basic population parameters. Results A total of 26 SNPs were used, for a total of 12,896 genotypes assayed. Statistical analysis revealed that breeds are not so similar in terms of genetic variability, as reported in studies performed using different markers. The Mantel test showed a strongly significant correlation between genetic and geographic distance. Also, PCA analysis revealed that breeds are grouped according to geographical origin, with the exception of the Greek Skopelos breed. Conclusion Our data point out that the use of SNP markers to analyze a wider breed sample could help in understanding the recent evolutionary history of domestic goats. We found correlation between genetic diversity and geographic distance. Also PCA analysis shows that the breeds are well differentiated, with good correspondence to geographical locations, thus confirming the correlation between geographical and genetic distances. This suggests that migration history of the species played a pivotal role in the present-day structure of the breeds and a scenario in which coastal routes were easier for migrating in comparison with inland routes. A westward coastal route to Italy through Greece could have led to gene flow along the Northern Mediterranean.

International audience; BACKGROUND: From the beginning of domestication, the transportation of domestic animals resulted in genetic and demographic processes that explain their present distribution and genetic structure. Thus studying the present genetic diversity helps to better understand the history of domestic species. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The genetic diversity of domestic goats has been characterized with 2430 individuals from all over the old world, including 946 new individuals from regions poorly studied until now (mainly the Fertile Crescent). These individuals represented 1540 haplotypes for the HVI segment of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region. This large-scale study allowed the establishment of a clear nomenclature of the goat maternal haplogroups. Only five of the six previously defined groups of haplotypes were divergent enough to be considered as different haplogroups. Moreover a new mitochondrial group has been localized around the Fertile Crescent. All groups showed very high haplotype diversity. Most of this diversity was distributed among groups and within geographic regions. The weak geographic structure may result from the worldwide distribution of the dominant A haplogroup (more than 90% of the individuals). The large-scale distribution of other haplogroups (except one), may be related to human migration. The recent fragmentation of local goat populations into discrete breeds is not detectable with mitochondrial markers. The estimation of demographic parameters from mismatch analyses showed that all groups had a recent demographic expansion corresponding roughly to the period when domestication took place. But even with a large data set it remains difficult to give relative dates of expansion for different haplogroups because of large confidence intervals. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: We propose standard criteria for the definition of the different haplogroups based on the result of mismatch analysis and on the use of sequences of reference. Such a method could be also applied for clarifying the nomenclature of mitochondrial haplogroups in other domestic species.

Most of the Western European cattle breeds consist of standardised breeds with a definite coat colour (Renieri et al., 1984). Thus coat colour could be useful to detect genetic markers for cattle breed identification. In cattle the pigmentation is determined by the distribution of two pigments: eu- and pheomelanin, producing brown or black and red to yellow pigmentation respectively. Tyrosinase, the rate-limiting enzyme involved in the synthesis of both melanins, is regulated by the melanocyte stimulating hormone (αMSH). This hormone and several other melanotropic peptides stimulate melanin formation in melanocytes by binding to the melanocortin-1-receptor (MC1R), a G-protein-coupled receptor encoded by the Extension gene (Robbins et al., 1993). In addition, the amounts of eu- and pheomelanin in the melanocyte are controlled by the agouti gene encoding the Agouti Signal Protein (ASP), that acts as an antagonist of MSH signalling through the MC1R, even if its mechanism of action is controversial (Furumura et al., 1998)..........

International audience; We investigated the genetic variation in domestic goats (Capra hircus) and compared the geographic and genetic diversity in this species on a large scale (world-wide) and on a local scale (Italian Alps). A total of 392 domestic goats belonging to 16 populations from Turkey, Mongolia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Italy and Switzerland were analysed with 118 AFLP markers. A high correlation between genetic and geographic distance (r=0.75; Pless than or equal to 0.01) was observed on a worldwide scale. AFLP data were in contrast with mitochondrial DNA data that showed weak geographic structure in goats. We hypothesized that in the process of breed formation, local wild and domesticated males significantly contributed their genomes to the geographic partition and present characteristics of the local breeds.