Microalgae provide a wealthy natural resource of bioactive compounds, which have many biological activities. Monosodium glutamate is a food additive that acts either as food preservatives or as tastiness enhancer. It was confirmed that monosodium glutamate poses a serious responsibility in the pathogenesis of anovulatory infertility. Therefore, the idea of this research was directed to reveal efficiency of Chlorella vulgaris and Spirulina platensis extracts against the ovarian dysfunction resulted due to monosodium glutamate consumption. Adult female albino mice were gavages orally monosodium glutamate alone or with either Chlorella vulgaris or Spirulina platensis aqueous extracts for 28 days. Female mice were subjected to superovulation to study the oocytes nuclear maturation stages. Histological and quantitative investigation was carried on ovaries. Biochemical assessment to measure the sex hormones level and ovarian enzymatic antioxidants was done. In addition, ovarian antioxidant mRNA genes were determined using quantitative PCR and Glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase was used as an internal control. The result revealed that monosodium glutamate reduced the oocytes quality and maturation rate, while, both algae improve the oocyte quality and maturation rate than in monosodium glutamate group. Chlorella vulgaris and Spirulina platensis improved the monosodium glutamate ovarian tissue histological alteration, sex hormones content and raised the ovarian enzymatic antioxidants level. In addition, monosodium glutamate markedly diminished the Glutathione peroxidase, superoxide dismutase and catalase mRNA expressions, However, Chlorella vulgaris or Spirulina platensis upregulated the expression of genes close to control. In conclusion, Chlorella vulgaris and Spirulina platensis showed potential alleviative role against the monosodium glutamate ovarian dysfunction.

This study was aimed to assess cytochrome b conservation in six breeds of camels reared in Egypt and to compare its sequence with those of other livestock species. The 208-bp fragments from camel mtDNA cyto b were amplified using PCR for 54 camels belonging to 6 camel breeds reared in Egypt. The alignment of camel cyto b sequences showed the presence of two polymorphic sites resulting in four haplotypes and their nucleotide sequences were submitted to GenBank under the accession numbers: KX909894–KX909897.The genetic distances between tested camel breeds were zero between Baladi, Fallahi and Maghrabi breeds whereas they were at low value between the other three breeds: Mowaled, Sodany and Somali. Neighbor-joining showed 4 branches; one of them include most of the tested animals and another one contains 2 Somali animals which is considered a specific haplotype for this breed. The other two branches are mixed between Sodani and Mowaled breeds.Neighbor-joining tree was constructed between cyto b sequences of our tested camels and their sequences from livestock species include Camelus dromedaries, Camelus bactrianus, Ovis aries, Capra hircus, Bubalus bubalis, Bos Taurus and Sus scrofa. The result confirmed that our camel breeds belong to Camelus dromedaries and are clearly separated from other species.It is concluded that cyto b sequence is highly conserved among all camel breeds reared in Egypt which belong to Camelus dromedaries in addition to the advantage of cyto b in differentiation between different livestock sources which enables it to widely use for the adulteration detection in mixed meat.

A B S T R A C T Small ruminants are considered as one of the major sources of meat and milk production in Egypt. Identification of the genes underlying livestock production traits leads to more efficient breeding programs and it is a promising way to improve production traits of farm animals. Growth hormone is a polypeptide hormone which is the major regulator of the metabolic procedures of growth and development and it is encoded by GH gene. In this study, we aimed to detect the genetic polymorphism of GH gene in major Egyptian sheep and goat breeds using PCR-RFLP and identify the single nucleotide polymorphism between different genotypes detected in these breeds. The primers used in this study flanked a 422 bp fragment from exons 2 and 3 of GH gene in sheep and goat. These PCR amplified fragments were digested with HaeIII endonuclease and the results showed the presence of two genotypes; GG and AG with the absence of AA genotype in 149 tested animals for this gene. The total frequencies were 43.56 and 56.44% for GG and AG genotypes, respectively in 101 tested sheep animals whereas in goat animals, the total frequencies were 12.5 and 87.5% for GG and AG genotypes, respectively in 48 tested goat animals. The sequence analysis of purified PCR products representing these two detected genotypes declared the presence of a SNP (G6A) at position 55 in the amplified fragment which is responsible for the destruction of the restriction site GG^CC and consequently the presence of two different alleles G and A which were named in this work according to the detected SNP. The nucleotide sequences of sheep GH alleles G and A as well as goat GH alleles G and A were submitted to nucleotide sequences database NCBI/Bankit/GenBank and have accession numbers: KP120857, KP120858, KP120859 and KP120860, respectively. In conclusion, production improvements can be achieved by using new genetic technology for better selection of heritable traits through marker-assisted selection. Due to the reported association between genotype possess A/G nucleotide with different growth trait parameters, we recommend to increase this heterozygous genotype in native small ruminant breeds through the selection of animals have AG genotype of GH gene and enter them in breeding programs of Egyptian small ruminants as a way to increase their production traits.

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The antimicrobial activity of tilapia piscidin 3 (TP3) was determined in vitro against a locally isolated Aeromonas hydrophila. A 388 BP fragment was amplified from the TP3 cDNA and sequenced. The coding sequence (CDS) of TP3 was estimated to be 231 BP codes for 76 amino acids long and stop codon. In silico analysis was performed to detect both the signal peptide and the prodomain cleavage sites to follow the amino acids number 22 and 70, respectively. Based on this, a peptide 23 amino acids long with a remarkably high computed antimicrobial probability was synthesized and used in the subsequent experiments. The antimicrobial activity of TP3 was determined with minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minim um bactericidal concentration (MBC) methods. TP3 exhibited relatively weak antimicrobial activities against the tested bacteria. A challenge experiment was then performed in Nile tilapia with low and high doses of A. hydrophila, followed by timely recognition; after 3, 6, 24 h, and 7 days of the specific TP3 gene expression, immunohistochemical localization was also performed. Histopathological examination revealed provoked inflammatory responses and congestion in the same organs of TP3 expression. Immunohistochemical localization showed that A. hydrophila induced tilapia fish to express TP3 after 24 h within the gills, intestine, hepatopancreas, spleen, and posterior kidney. In quantitative real time (RT)-polymerase chain reaction analysis, the high dose showed higher mRNA expression levels than the low dose, and its expression levels increased in the A. hydrophila-infected fish. It was therefore concluded that TP3 plays an essential role in fish immunity.

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Growth hormone (GH) is an anabolic hormone synthesized and secreted by the somatotroph cells of the anterior lobe of the pituitary gland in a circadian and pulsatile manner, the pattern of which plays an important role in postnatal longitudinal growth and development, tissue growth, lactation, reproduction as well as protein, lipid and carbohydrate metabolism. The aim of this study was to detect the genetic polymorphism of GH gene in five camel breeds reared in Egypt which are Sudany, Somali, Mowaled, Maghrabi and Falahy, using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) technique. Also, this work aimed to identify the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) between different genotypes detected in these camel breeds. The amplified fragment of camel GH at 613-bp was digested with the restriction enzyme MspI and the result reveals the presence of three different genotypes; CC, CT and TT in tested breeds. Significant differences were recorded in the genotype frequencies between these camel breeds. The result shows that the Maghrabi breed that is classified as a dual purpose camels had higher frequency for allele C (0.75) than those in the other tested four breeds. The sequence analysis declared the presence of a SNP (C264T) in the amplified fragment which is responsible for the elimination of the restriction site C^CGG and consequently the appearance of two different alleles C and T. The nucleotide sequences of camel GH alleles T and C were submitted to nucleotide sequences database NCBI/Bankit/GenBank and have accession numbers: KP143517 and KP143518, respectively. It is concluded that only one SNP C→T was detected in GH gene among the five tested camel breeds reared in Egypt and this nucleotide substitution can be used as a marker for the genetic biodiversity between these camel breeds. Also, due to the possible association between allele C and higher growth rate, we can used it in marker assisted selection (MAS) for camels in breeding program as a way for enhancement of growth trait in camel breeds reared in Egypt.

The prion protein is coded by the PRP gene which is active in the brain and several other tissues. The functions of normal PrPs are related to energy production, protein degradation and DNA replication. Prions are the essential factor for the transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) in different mammalian species. The present study aimed to identify the nucleotide characterization of the PRP gene in six camel breeds reared in Egypt. Genomic DNA which was extracted from 80 camels belonging to six breeds reared in Egypt was used to amplify fragments at 725-bp using a specific primer for PRP gene. Alignment of Egyptian camel PRP nucleotide sequences with those of other mammalian species declared the similarity 100% between PRP sequences of Egyptian and Iranian camels and 99.7% similarity with English, German and Chinese camel populations. The nucleotide sequence of Egyptian camel was submitted to GenBank under the accession no.: MF685344. The comparison between PRP amino acids of Camelus species with other mammalian species showed two missing amino acids in Camelus and Lama glama species; Glycine at position 83 and Leucine at position 229 whereas there is a unique amino acid addition-Glycine at position 89in Camelus species.