The giant river-catfish Sperata seenghala is one of the commercially important freshwater catfishes of India with wide distribution in all major rivers and reservoirs. This fish has huge demand in domestic market due to high nutritional value and low number of intramuscular bones. Conversely, the culture practices for this fish have not yet been standardized and capture fisheries is the only source to meet the demand. This may lead to over exploitation of resources and subsequent population reduction. Knowledge on genetic structure of populations is prerequisite to formulate sustainable management and conservation measures. In the present study, 15 microsatellites were used to characterize population genetics of S. seenghala collected from river Brahmaputra, Ganga, Godavari, Mahanadi and Narmada. Locus-wise, the number of alleles varied from 8 to 19 with an average of 12 alleles per locus. The mean observed and expected heterozygosity values varied from 0.622 to 0.699 and 0.733 to 0.774, respectively. Several loci have shown deviation from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium and no significant linkage disequilibrium between pairs of loci was detected. Pair-wise FST values between populations ranged from 0.135 (Brahmaputra–Ganga) to 0.173 (Brahmaputra–Narmada) and confirmed the moderate to high genetic differentiation among the populations. AMOVA, Structure and Principal Co-ordinate analyses showed significant genetic differentiation among the sampled populations of S. seenghala. A total of 65 private alleles were recorded across populations. This study confirmed the distinctiveness of each population of S. seenghala from five major rivers of India. These populations could be treated as distinct management units (MUs) for assessment and management purpose.
Aptamers are ‘nucleic acid antibodies’ that bind to target molecules with high affinity and specificity. The process by which aptamers are selected is called Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment (SELEX). A plethora of aptamers have been selected against various targets, such as proteins, cells, microorganisms, chemical compounds, etc. Technical progress in the aspects of high throughput sequencing (HTS) technologies, bioinformatics, microfluidics and nanodevices have widened the scope of aptamers to contribute significantly in human as well as veterinary medicine. We have searched the Pubmed database and Google Scholar with the search term ‘aptamer’, ‘SELEX’, ‘animal diseases’. The search results have been categorized into bacterial, viral and protozoal diseases of veterinary importance. Here we have systematically described the strategy used to design aptamers for each disease and also shed light on the future research scope in this area. This article presents a comprehensive and up-to-date review of SELEX-aptamer technology, its modifications, aptamers selected against various animal pathogens, their potential to be applied in the future for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes.
The porcine circovirus 2 (PCV2) is one of the most economically significant swine pathogens, causing PCVAD as well as impaired reproductive efficiency, stillbirth, and weight loss in infected pig populations. The PCV2 ORF2 gene encodes capsid protein (cap protein), which has 233 amino acids (AA) in PCV2a/2b and an additional lysine residue at the C-terminus in PCV2d. In this study, we created a PCV2d capsid sequence (ORF2) for expression in Escherichia coli. His tag chromatography method was used to purify the protein, and western blot was used to detect protein expression. In this study, an indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (I-ELISA) based on the PCV2d ORF2 protein was developed. The best antigen, serum, and goat anti-porcine IgG conjugate dilutions were 1:1500 (3.245 µg/ml), 1:320, and 1:1600, respectively. The estimated cut-off value was 0.9885, and its analytical sensitivity was 1:2400. Except for PCV2a, PCV2b, and PCV2d antisera, the results of specific evaluation revealed that these antisera did not cross-react with any other common porcine viral pathogens, indicating that this method can be used to detect porcine circovirus infection in pig.
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