Cattle are the main source of livelihood for small farmers in high altitude cold desert. They also provide draught power, social and cultural strength. Cattle, therefore, contribute to subsistence farming and enhance the sustainability of smallholder farming systems. Determination of nutritional and health status of cattle is important in modern animal agriculture. Haematological and biochemical aids have been used to identify status of cattle. Keeping this in view, the present study was undertaken to establish hematological and biochemical responses on milk production of Jersey cows at high altitude production in two different seasons (summer and winter). For each period, ambient temperature and relative humidity were recorded and the temperature-humidity index (THI) was calculated as indicator of thermal comfort for cattle. A total of 140 (70 cows in each season) clinically healthy lactating Jersey cows aged 2 – 17 years at 3327 – 3575-meter altitude from mean sea level in the Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir, India, were used to evaluate the effect of environmental conditions on haematological parameters. The hematological parameters were estimated by using an automatic blood analyzer and biochemical test performed by the serum semi-auto analyzer. Among the hematological parameters, white blood cell (WBC), lymphocyte (LYM), granulocytes (GRAN), red blood cells (RBC), hemoglobin (Hb), hematocrit (HCT), mean corpuscular volume (MCV), mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH), mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC), and platelets (PLT) were analyzed. The results showed a significant difference in most of the parameters due to the variation in ambient temperature, relative humidity and temperature-humidity index. A significant increase (p<0.05) in RBC, Hb, and HCT was recorded in winter season as compared to the summer season. MCV, MCH, MCHC and PLT levels also exhibited the similar trend whereas, the WBC, lymphocyte, monocytes, and granulocytes values found were higher in summer compared to the winter season (p<0.05). However, in case of biochemical profile, glucose and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) level showed a significant increase (p<0.05) in summer season but level of albumin went significantly higher (p<0.05) in the winter season. Milk production level was significantly higher (p<0.05) in the summer season. These results provide an insight into the hematological and biochemical responses of Jersey cows to different environmental conditions. As the hematological and biochemical profiles of dairy cows has been altered in response to the different season which ultimately affected on the milk production. This study will be helpful for the better dairy cattle management in different seasons for higher production at the cold arid high altitude region.

Background: Biochemical and haematological parameters have not been determined in Bactrian camels kept at high altitude. Therefore, this study was undertaken to characterise different physiological, haematological, biochemical, and morphometric parameters of Bactrian camels of high altitude. For this, total fourteen high altitude healthy Bactrian camels were selected from Leh-Ladakh, India, a high altitude area, and thereafter divided into three age groups (N = 3 young; N = 6 adult; N = 5 old camels) to characterise for above parameters. All the results were compared with Lowlander Bactrian camels. Results: Morphometric measurement showed significant difference in body height, body length, front-hump height and girth, back-hump height and girth, abdomen girth, neck length, and circumference of the shank in the young age group camels as compared to other age groups of Bactrian camels (p < 0.05). Furthermore, all the physiological and haematological parameters were similar in all the age groups of camels (p < 0.05). However, the leukocyte, erythrocyte, Hb, platelets, monocyte, and ESR level were towards the higher side of the normal reference range of Lowlander Bactrian camels. Whereas, the biochemical analysis revealed a significant increase in triglycerides and decrease in protein levels in the younger age group as compared to other age groups (p < 0.05). Although, albumin, aspartate aminotransferase, iron, magnesium, urea, and creatinine levels were insignificant among the different groups, but observed towards the higher side of the low altitude reference range. Interestingly, the glucose levels in all the groups were observed towards the lower side of the range, which showed metabolic adaptation to high altitude. Conclusion: These findings suggested there is morphometric and biochemical variation in Bactrian camel of high altitude. The results further helped in establishing novel reference ranges for these parameters in Highlander Bactrian camel. Hence, this study will be the basis of future research on a Bactrian camel from high-altitude cold desert and helpful for better camel husbandry and health management in high altitude.

The present study was undertaken to evaluate haematological and biochemical parameters with response to milk production of Jersey cows at high altitude in 2 different seasons (summer and winter). For each period, ambient temperature and relative humidity were recorded and the temperature-humidity index (THI) was calculated as indicator of thermal comfort zone for cattle. Clinically healthy lactating Jersey crossbred cows (70:70 in each season) were selected for this study. A significant increase in RBC, Hb, and HCT was recorded in winter as compared to summer. Furthermore, MCV, MCH, MCHC and PLT levels also exhibited the similar trend; whereas, the WBC, lymphocyte, monocytes, and granulocytes values were higher in summer compared to winter. Glucose and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) level showed a significant increase in summer but level of albumin went significantly higher in winter. Milk production level was significantly higher in summer. These results provided an insight into the haematological and biochemical responses of Jersey crossbred cows to different environmental conditions. Hence, this study will be helpful for the better dairy cattle management in different seasons for higher production at the cold arid high altitude region.

The objective of the study was to develop a bio-safe synthetic peptide ELISA for the detection of antibodies against the infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) using a novel multiple antigenic peptide approach (MAP). After initial ELISA optimization, diagnostic sensitivity (DSn) and specificity (DSp) for the linear peptides were determined using receiver operator curve (ROC) analysis. The peptide IBVP1 showed 90.44% DSn and 88.64% DSp at ROC cut off 22.8% while IBVP2 showed 88.24% DSn and 85.23% DSp at ROC cut off 23.05%. The multimerization of linear peptides to MAP design resulted in the improvement of the diagnostic efficiency up to 94.85% DSn and 92.05% DSp for IBVM1 with 19.95% cut off. A similar improvement in the performance was also observed with 92.65% DSn and 90.91% DSp for IBVM2 at 20.72% cut off. All the peptides were tested for diagnostic specificity and did not show the cross-reactivity with Newcastle disease virus and infectious bursal disease virus positive serum samples. In addition, repeatability testing for all linear and multimeric peptide showed that the coefficient of variation for intra-assay was within the expected limits, ranging from 2.4 to 10.4% and inter-assay coefficient of variation was ranging from 5.56 to 14.3%. In a nutshell, the present study used predicted B cell epitope, the synthetic peptide in linear and multimeric design for IBV antibody detection. The study also highlights peptide antigen with modified scaffold design could be a safe alternative to whole virion-based ELISA for IBV antibody detection.

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The high altitude region of India is characterized by harsh climatic conditions that may have an adverse impact on growth and metabolic functions of camels. Thus, the main aim of this study was to evaluate different adaptation parameters related to morphological, physio-biochemical and haematological indices in low lander Dromedarian and high lander native Bactrian camels at high altitude. To the best of our knowledge, no studies have been conducted so far to evaluate these different adaptation parameters in both breeds of camels to understand their adaptive mechanism in high altitude. Therefore, the present study was conducted to evaluate these adaptation parameters in Dromedarian and Bactrian camels. All morphological parameters were within the normal ranges in both the breeds. However, girth of hump, and skin thickness of shank and abdomen were towards the higher side of normal range in Dromedarian camels The heart rate was significantly high and rectal temperature was low in Dromedarian camels than native Bactrian camels (P < 0.05). Interestingly, the erythrocytes sedimentation rate, lymphocytes and platelets counts were significantly high and above the reference range in Bactrian as compared to Dromedarian(p < 0.05), whereas MCV, leukocytes and neutrophils were towards higher side of normal range in Dromedary. Similarly, aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT) were also significantly high, whereas glucose and triglycerides levels were low in native Bactrian as compared to Dromedarian(p < 0.05). These findings suggested that there is species difference in adaptation parameters in response to high altitude. Further, native high lander Bactrian camel having better metabolic adaptation and non-glucose energy substrates dependent metabolism. These parameters could be useful for evaluating their health conditions and load carrying performance for further selection of elite animals as pack animals at high altitude.