A better understanding of the biology of lactation, both in terms of gene expression and the identification of candidate genes for the production of milk and its components, is made possible by recent advances in RNA seq technology. The purpose of this study was to understand the synthesis of milk components and the molecular pathways involved, as well as to identify candidate genes for milk production traits within whole mammary transcriptomic datasets. We performed a meta-analysis of publically available RNA seq transcriptome datasets of mammary tissue/milk somatic cells. In total, 11 562 genes were commonly identified from all RNA seq based mammary gland transcriptomes. Functional annotation of commonly expressed genes revealed the molecular processes that contribute to the synthesis of fats, proteins, and lactose in mammary secretory cells and the molecular pathways responsible for milk synthesis. In addition, we identified several candidate genes responsible for milk production traits and constructed a gene regulatory network for RNA seq data. In conclusion, this study provides a basic understanding of the lactation biology of cows at the gene expression level.

S heep rearing is an important livelihood for small and marginal farmers of India. Sheep are efficient converters of unutilized poor quality grass and crop residues into meat and skin (Ganesan et al., 2015). The sheep are distinct species among the domestic animals in the world since they have an excellent ability to survive over a prolonged period of drought and semi starvation and are less prone to extreme weather conditions. In the event of failure of seasonal rainfall in the rainfed areas, leading to crop failure, sheep gives the farmers a helping hand and uplifts them (Swarnkar and Singh, 2010). Sheep in India are mostly maintained on natural vegetation on common grazing lands, wastelands and uncultivated lands, stubbles of cultivated crops and top feeds (tree lopping). The scarcity of the fodder at any time is a function of the stocking rate and carrying capacity of the system at that time, the fodder shortage compels the farmers to adopt suitable coping strategies, among which migration is an important one (Bilegjargal et al., 2017). Some sections of the people practice migratory sheep management as a way of life and have acquired caste/community connotations as well, for example, the Raika community of Rajasthan and Gaddi community in Himachal Pradesh. On the other hand, the temporary migration is a coping strategy to farmers to the risk and uncertainty in the production research Article Abstract | A study was conducted to analyse economics of migratory sheep production and socioeconomic status of flock owners in southern agro-climatic zone of Tamil Nadu, India. A total of 100 migratory sheep farmers were randomly selected for the study and divided as small (< 175), medium (175-350) and large (> 350) flocks based on the average flock size for comparison. The migratory sheep flock owners were mostly Hindus and belonged to the backward classes, mainly Konars. The flock owners were mostly of old age group, illiterates and they had more than two decades of experience in migratory sheep farming. Majority of the flock owners were small and marginal dry land farmers with a mean land holding of 4 acres. The cost of rearing sheep was accounted through wages (56.06percent), food for shepherds (22.18percent), veterinary charges (15.41percent) and transportation between migratory places (6.35percent). The sources of returns were by sale of surplus lambs (72.41percent), culled adults (5.11percent), penning charges (19.69percent) and sale of manure (2.79percent). The overall average annual net returns per flock and per adult sheep estimated were Rs.

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The Bos indicus cattle breeds have been naturally selected over thousands of years for disease resistance and thermo-tolerance. However, a genetic mechanism of these specific inherited characteristics needs to be discovered. Hence, in this study, the whole-genome comparative analysis of Bos indicus cattle breeds of Kangayam, Tharparkar, Sahiwal, Red Sindhi, and Hariana of the Indian subcontinent was conducted. The genetic variants identification analysis revealed a total of 15,58,51,012 SNPs and 1,00,62,805 InDels in the mapped reads across all Bos indicus cattle breeds. The functional annotation of 17,252 genes that comprised both, SNPs and InDels, of high functional impact on proteins, has been carried out. The functional annotation results revealed the pathways that were involved in the innate immune response including toll-like receptors, a retinoic acid-inducible gene I like receptors, NOD-like receptors, Jak-STAT signaling pathways, and the non-synonymous variants in the candidate immune genes. Further, we also identified several pathways involved in heat shock response, hair and skin properties, oxidative stress response, osmotic stress response, thermal sweating, feed intake, metabolism, and the non-synonymous variants in the candidate thermo-tolerant genes. These pathways and genes were directly or indirectly contributing to the disease resistance and thermo-tolerance adaptations of Bos indicus cattle breeds.

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