Publications in the Year: 2023

Journal Article

El Nagar AG, Salem MMI, Amin AMS, Khalil MH, Ashour AF, Hegazy MM, Abdel-Shafy H.  2023.  A Single-Step Genome-Wide Association Study for Semen Traits of Egyptian Buffalo Bulls.. Animals : an open access journal from MDPI. 13(24) Abstract

The present study aimed to contribute to the limited research on buffalo () semen traits by incorporating genomic data. A total of 8465 ejaculates were collected. The genotyping procedure was conducted using the Axiom Buffalo Genotyping 90 K array designed by the Affymetrix Expert Design Program. After conducting a quality assessment, we utilized 67,282 SNPs genotyped in 192 animals. We identified several genomic loci explaining high genetic variance by employing single-step genomic evaluation. The aforementioned regions were located on buffalo chromosomes no. 3, 4, 6, 7, 14, 16, 20, 22, and the X-chromosome. The X-chromosome exhibited substantial influence, accounting for 4.18, 4.59, 5.16, 5.19, and 4.31% of the genomic variance for ejaculate volume, mass motility, livability, abnormality, and concentration, respectively. In the examined genomic regions, we identified five novel candidate genes linked to male fertility and spermatogenesis, four in the X-chromosome and one in chromosome no. 16. Additional extensive research with larger sample sizes and datasets is imperative to validate these findings and evaluate their applicability for genomic selection.
Deng T, Wu J, Abdel-Shafy H, Wang X, Lv H, Shaukat A, Zhou X, Zhou Y, Sun H, Wei P et al..  2023.  Comparative Genomic Analysis of the Thiolase Family and Functional Characterization of the Acetyl-Coenzyme A Acyltransferase-1 Gene for Milk Biosynthesis and Production of Buffalo and Cattle.. Journal of agricultural and food chemistry. 71(7):3325-3337. Abstract

Cattle and buffalo served as the first and second largest dairy animals, respectively, providing 96% milk products worldwide. Understanding the mechanisms underlying milk synthesis is critical to develop the technique to improve milk production. Thiolases, also known as acetyl-coenzyme A acetyltransferases (ACAT), are an enzyme family that plays vital roles in lipid metabolism, including ACAT1, ACAT2, ACAA1, ACAA2, and HADHB. Our present study showed that these five members were orthologous in six livestock species including buffalo and cattle. Transcriptomic data analyses derived from different lactations stages showed that displayed different expression patterns between buffalo and cattle. Immunohistochemistry staining revealed that ACAA1 were dominantly located in the mammary epithelial cells of these two dairy animals. Knockdown of inhibited mammary epithelial cell proliferation and triglyceride and β-casein secretion by regulating related gene expressions in cattle and buffalo. In contrast, overexpression promoted cell proliferation and triglyceride secretion. Finally, three novel SNPs (g.-681A>T, g.-23117C>T, and g.-24348G>T) were detected and showed significant association with milk production traits of Mediterranean buffaloes. In addition, g.-681A>T mutation located in the promoter region changed transcriptional activity significantly. Our findings suggested that play a key role in regulating buffalo and cattle milk synthesis and provided basic information to further understand the dairy animal lactation physiology.