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The parameters for blood enzyme activities, clinical status, antioxidant defense, and cortisol and thyroxin concentrations in fresh cows in dry and postpartum periods were studied with the use of compound physiologically active substances having probiotic, antioxidant, adsorbent, and hepatoprotective properties. Positive changes in the animals fed the developed compound feeding stuff under the effect of feeding correction were revealed. Declined AST activity and the total bilirubin content, along with increased ALT activity and the lowered activities of gamma-glutamyl transferase and lactate dehydrogenase, in the animals of the experimental group were recorded. Thus, the total bilirubin content decreased by 35% (p < 0.05) and 40.4% (p < 0.01), the ALT activity increased by 10.3% (p < 0.001) and 12.0% (р < 0.05), and the activities of gamma-glutamyl transferase and lactate dehydrogenase reduced by 18.1 and 17.1% (p < 0.01) and 12.4 and 17.2% (р < 0.05), respectively. Positive changes in the antioxidant status of cows that consumed the complementary feed were ascertained. The average daily milk yields of cows in the control and experimental groups within the experiment comprised, on average, 31.73 kg milk containing 3.75% fat and 34.78 kg (p < 0.05) milk containing 3.78% fat, respectively.

Creating panels for parentage assignment based on the most informative SNPs (minor allele frequency, MAF≥ 0.3) is an important problem of the modern sheep breeding. International Society of Animal Genetics (ISAG) recommends the parentage panel consisting of 88 autosomal SNPs, developed by the International Sheep Genomics Consortium. However, selection of SNPs, which were included into the panel, was performed on the base of DNA profiles of North American, Australian and New Zealand sheep. There were no Russian breeds in these researches, and the possibility of applying ISAG panel to parentage testing of these sheep must be studied. We have performed the whole genome SNP study in four local Russian sheep breeds — Romanov (ROM, n = 22), Baikal’s fine-fleeced (ZBL, n = 7), Buryat sheep Buubey (BUB, n = 15), and Tuvan short fat tailed (TUV, n = 16) using Ovine SNP50k BeadChip. Data were processed for the total number of markers (54241 SNPs) and for 88 autosomal SNPs, recommended by ISAG. We estimated percentage of markers with MAF  0.3, mean MAF value, probability of identity (PI) and probabilities exclusion (P1, P2, P3) to evaluate the power of parentage panel for each of single breed and for entire sample. The universality of the panel was evaluated by comparing the degree of genetic differentiation of breeds based on the study of the entire number of SNPs and panel ISAG. For this purpose, we took in account such criteria as pairwise values of Fst (AMOVA) and results of principal component analysis (PCA-plot). We did summary statistics in Plink 1.09 and GenAlEx 6.5. After the quality control of the entire sample, we selected 47385 SNPs with mean MAF of 0.292±0.131 for the further analysis. The mean MAF for 88 parentage SNPs was 0.380±0.091. Analysis of the SNPs’ distribution depending on theirs MAF showed that most of the SNPs (81.8 %) were informative (MAF≥ 0.3). Proportion of informative SNPs differed between breeds and was 56.8 % in ROM, 63.4 % in ZBL, 71.6 % in BUB and 72.7 % in TUV. Twenty-one SNPs (23.9 %) were highly informative in all four breeds, while 37 SNPs (42.0 %), 17 SNPs (19.3 %) and 10 SNPs (11.4 %) were informative, respectively, in three, two or only one breed. Marker DU196132_525.1 was monomorphic in TUV (MAF = 0). Three SNPs with MAF < 0.3 (DU232924_365.1, DU501115_497.1 and DU372582_268.1) were not informative for all four breeds. Lower pairwise values of Fst based on 88 SNPs with the same character of genetic relations compared with those using whole genome SNP profiles shown high flexibility of ISAG panel. PCA confirmed the low breed’s dependence of SNP panel by creating purely consolidated overlapping areas corresponding to different breeds. The probability of identity for 88 SNPs ranged from 4.32½10-33 in TUV to 7.48½10-33 in BUB. Probability of exclusion was P1≥99.99 % for all four breeds. The value of P2 was the highest in TUV (P2≥99.99 %) with P2≥99.98 % for others. The value of P3 was 99.9 % for all breeds. Instead of some breeddependent character of DNA profiles of 88 autosomal SNPs, our results confirmed the possibility of applying of ISAG panel for parentage testing in four local Russian sheep breeds.

Extinction of many species is irreversible and is a part of the natural evolution, but human activities have influenced this process, making it much faster comparing to speciation. According to FAO, approximately 20 % of the breeds of cattle, goats, pigs, horses and poultry in the world are currently at risk of disappearance, many have died in the past few years, as a result their genetic characteristics lost forever. The role of banks in the management of genetic resources and the conservation of endangered species is particularly noticeable in the last decade. Most cryobanks focus on the cryopreservation of gametes (primarily sperm) and embryos. Their main goal is to produce offspring using reproductive technologies, which include artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer. The discovery of the phenomenon of reprogramming somatic cell nuclear allowed expanding the range of forms of biological material in programs for cryopreservation. Creating cryobanks of somatic cells as donors of nuclei for cloning considered an auxiliary instrument for the preservation and improvement of the gene pool of farm animals and poultry. To obtain viable cryopreserved cell lines very small amount of biopsy material, including that of dead animals, is sufficient, but such lines contain the complete genome and proteome. In contrast to germ cells, embryos and generative tissues, the cryopreserved somatic cells after repeated thawing are capable to regenerate, i.e. almost infinitely may serve as a source of biomaterial for use in assisted reproductive technologies and biological research, including retrospective reconstruction. Furthermore, due to the small size the somatic cells are more resistant to cryopreservation. This review also provides a brief description of the principles and history of cloning. The advantages of the use of different cell types as karyoplasts are discussed. In particular, almost all types of cells (e.g. embryonic cells, mammary cells, cumulus, granulosa, oviduct, liver, fibroblasts, white blood cells and embryonic stem cells) can be used for the production of cloned animals, but the cloning efficiency depends significantly on the type of cells. Aiming embryo development and birth of live offspring, the fetal fibroblasts as donors of nuclear material for cloning are most effective. Alternatively, the stem cells may be a source of the nuclei. Stem or progenitor cells (i.e., stem, determined to differentiate in specific type cells) are easier reprogrammed than terminally differentiated cells. Also when stem cells nuclei are used as karyoplasts the number of cloned embryos significantly increased. The advances in interspecific cloning as a strategy for restoration of rare and endangered species are discussed. Numerous examples show that somatic cells can be considered the most promising material for the recovery of animal genetic resources of different types. Particularly from 1997 to 2012 using the differentiated somatic cells domestic and wild animals of different species were obtained such as sheep, mice, cows, goats, pigs, guar, mouflon, domestic cat, rabbits, mule, horse, rat, wildcat, dog, banteng, ferret, wolves, buffalo, deer, mountain goat, camel, coyote. Cattle are still the leader in the production of cloned offspring with the efficacy 10 % on average, and in some cases up to 25 %, while for most other animals it does not exceed 1 %. Under controlled conditions in farms with good management, the productivity of clones should vary only within the remaining natural variability and mitochondrial genetic variability due to cloning technology.