Matthew Adekunle Adeleke

A preliminary screening of genetic lineage of nigerian local chickens based on blood protein polymorphisms

Fueron tomadas muestras de sangre para el analisis proteico en tres variedades de gallinas autoctonas nigerianas (de plumaje normal, de plumaje rizado y de cuello desnudo) y una variedad exotica (Anak Titan). Cada una de estas poblaciones representa un genotipo. Se usaron muestras de sangre de 50 animales por genotipo para valorar la diversidad genetica de las gallinas autoctonas nigerianas. Fueron observados un total de 18 grupos a partir de las cuatro variedades durante la resolucion de la proteina utilizando electroforesis en gel de poliacrilamida con dodecilsulfato sodico (pagina de SDS). El dendograma desarrollado desde los diferentes grupos observados revelo que las variedades se encontraban claramente separadas unas de otras y con una semejanza genetica media entre las cuatro variedades del 55 percent, siendo la variedad de cuello desnudo las mas separada.

Application of principal component and discriminant analyses to morpho-structural indices of indigenous and exotic chickens raised under intensive management system.

The objectives of this study were to investigate the relationships between body weight and morpho-structural indices to predict body weight from their orthogonal body shape characters using principal component analysis and to morphologically classify the chicken genotypes using multivariate discriminant analysis. Data used were from 273 randomly selected 12-weeks-old indigenous chickens of normal-feathered (NF), frizzle-feathered (FF), naked-neck (NN) and Anak Titan (AT) genotypes. Phenotypic correlation among body weight and most biometric traits ranged from 0.227–0.876, −0.7–0.901, 0.034–0.968 and −0.207–0.849 for NF, NN and AT chickens, respectively. Factor analysis with varimax rotation of interrelated traits revealed three principal components which accounted for 83.1%, 74.4%, 78.8% and 76.5% of the total variance in NF, FF, NN and AT chickens in the order listed. Breast girth, keel length, thigh length, shank length and wing length were found to be the most discriminating variables to separate the chicken genotypes. The longest distance (72.54) occurred between AT and NF genotypes while the shortest distance (4.27) was recorded for FF and NN genotypes. Classification results showed that 85.2% of AT genotype was correctly classified into their source population. However, 22.7% of NF was misclassified as NN, while 33.3% of NN was misclassified as NF chickens. These results suggest that there is high rate of gene flow between these two indigenous chicken genotypes. Information obtained from this study may be considered useful in breed improvement programmes for selection, characterization, conservation and better management of Nigerian indigenous chickens.

Multifactorial discriminant analysis of morphological and heat-tolerant traits in indigenous, exotic and cross-bred turkeys in Nigeria.

Este estudio examina la capacidad para distinguir los rasgos morfologicos y de tolerancia al calor en pavos autoctonos, exoticos y cruzados en Nigeria mediante el analisis discriminante multivariado. Un total de 228 pavos de 20 semanas de edad fueron utilizados en el estudio. Los parametros corporales medidos fueron el peso corporal (BW), diametro longitudinal (BL), longitud del tarso (SL), longitud del muslo (TL), longitud de quilla (KL), perimetro toracico (BG), temperatura rectal (RT), frecuencia del pulso (PR), frecuencia respiratoria (FR) y el indice de estres termico (HI). El analisis de la varianza revelo que los pavos exoticos mostraban valores significativamente ( p < 0,05) mayores que los pavos autoctonos de Nigeria y que los cruzados para todos los rasgos morfologicos, con la excepcion de la TL. Sin embargo, los pavos autoctonos y los cruzados parecian tener mas capacidad de adaptacion que los exoticos en base a valores de HI mas bajos. El dimorfismo sexual se observo solo en los caracteres morfologicos, donde los machos presentaron de forma significativa ( p < 0,05) un mayor BW, BL, SL, TL y KL que en las hembras. Sin embargo, el analisis discriminante por pasos revelo que BW, TL y HI, fueron las variables mas discriminantes a la hora de separar los tres grupos geneticos. La mayor distancia de Mahalanobis se observo entre los pavos autoctonos y exoticos (36,68), mientras que la distancia mas corta se registro entre los pavos autoctonos y los cruzados (7,97). El diagrama canonico puso de manifiesto la heterogeneidad de las poblaciones de pavo, agrupando las aves por separado. En el nivel de asignacion mas cercano del analisis discriminante, el 100,00%, el 98,73%y el 96,43%de pavos exoticos, cruzados y autoctonos fueron asignados correctamente en sus grupos de origen genetico. Los presentes hallazgos podrian ayudar a la implementacion de una estrategia de conservacion y mejora de los pavos autoctonos hacia el desarrollo sostenible de los recursos zoogeneticos.

Effect of crossbreeding on fertility, hatchability and embryonic mortality of Nigerian local chickens

A total of 970 eggs were collected from matings involving three genotypes of Nigerian local chickens (Normal-feathered, Frizzle-feathered and Naked neck) and one exotic broiler breeder strain (Anak Titan) to evaluate the effect of crossbreeding on fertility, hatchability and embryonic mortality. Mating was achieved through artificial insemination. Sire genotype significantly (P < 0.05) affected percent fertility and percent dead-in-shell. Naked neck sire genotype had the highest dead-in-shell (19.5%) with the least being 7.5% for Frizzle-feathered chickens. Frizzle-feathered sire genotype had the highest fertility (90.5%) and hatchability (91.4%). Dam genotype had a significant effect (P < 0.01) on fertility and hatchability, with Anak Titan dam having the highest fertility and hatchability of 88.2% and 94.6%, respectively. Fertility and hatchability were significantly (P < 0.05) influenced by the interactive effect of sire and dam genotypes with Frizzle-feathered × Anak Titan having 98.5% fertility and 96.8% hatchability. Both straight and reciprocal crosses involving Frizzle-feathered genotype and Anak Titan resulted in higher mean values for fertility and hatchability when compared to crosses involving the other two local chicken genotypes. This result suggests that the use of the Frizzle-feathered genotype appears to be more desirable in fertility and hatchability trials.

Physiological adaptation of local, exotic and crossbred turkeys to the hot and humid tropical environment of Nigeria

Abstract A total of 300 birds consisting of 120 local, 120 crossbred and 60 exotic turkeys were used to compare physiological adaptation of birds raised under the high-heat stress environment of Nigerian tropical humid climate. Genotype significantly (P<0.05) affected heat tolerance traits with the highest mean values for rectal temperature, pulse-rate and heat stress index observed in exotic turkeys. Genotype also had significant (P<0.05) effect on serum biochemical parameters such as glucose (GLU), potassium (K+) and Chloride (Cl–). The haematological indices of the birds such as haemoglobin, white blood cell count and heterophyl/lymphocyte ratio (H/L) were equally affected by the different genetic groups (P < 0.05). The significantly higher (P<0.05) H/L ratio of the exotic turkeys was an indication of heat stress. The better performance exhibited by local and crossbred turkeys could be exploited in management, conservation and selection decisions of animal genetic resources under tropical conditions.

Genetic Diversity of Bovine Major Histocompatibility Complex Class II DRB3 locus in cattle breeds from Asia compared to those from Africa and America

Genetic polymorphisms and diversity of BoLA-DRB3.2 are essential because of DRB3 genes function in innate immunity and its association with infectious diseases resistance or tolerance in cattle. The present study was aimed at assessing the level of genetic diversity of DRB3 in the exon 2 (BoLA-DRB3.2) region in African, American and Asian cattle breeds. Amplification of exon 2 in 174 cattle revealed 15 haplotypes. The breeds with the highest number of haplotypes were Brangus (10), Sokoto Gudali (10) and Dajal (9), while the lowest number of haplotypes were found in Holstein and Sahiwal with 4 haplotypes each. Medium Joining network obtained from haplotypic data showed that all haplotypes condensed around a centric area and each sequence (except in H-3, H-51 and H-106) representing almost a specific haplotype. The BoLA-DRB3.2 sequence analyses revealed a non-significant higher rate of non-synonymous (dN) compared to synonymous substitutions (dS). The ratio of dN/dS substitution across the breeds were observed to be greater than one suggesting that variation at the antigen-binding sites is under positive selection; thus increasing the chances of these breeds to respond to wide array of pathogenic attacks. An analysis of molecular variance revealed that 94.01 and 5.99% of the genetic variation was attributable to differences within and among populations, respectively. Generally, results obtained suggest that within breed genetic variation across breeds is higher than between breeds. This genetic information will be important for investigating the relationship between BoLADRB3.2 and diseases in various cattle breeds studied with attendant implication on designing breeding programs that will aim at selecting individual cattle that carry resistant alleles.

Computational genome-wide identification of heat shock protein genes in the bovine genome

Background: Heat shock proteins (HSPs) are molecular chaperones known to bind and sequester client proteins under stress. Methods: To identify and better understand some of these proteins, we carried out a computational genome-wide survey of the bovine genome. For this, HSP sequences from each subfamily (sHSP, HSP40, HSP70 and HSP90) were used to search the Pfam (Protein family) database, for identifying exact HSP domain sequences based on the hidden Markov model. ProtParam tool was used to compute potential physico-chemical parameters detectable from a protein sequence. Evolutionary trace (ET) method was used to extract evolutionarily functional residues of a homologous protein family. Results: We computationally identified 67 genes made up of 10, 43, 10 and 4 genes belonging to small HSP, HSP40, HSP70 and HSP90 families respectively. These genes were widely dispersed across the bovine genome, except in chromosomes 24, 26 and 27, which lack bovine HSP genes. We found an uncharacterized outer dense fiber ( ODF1) gene in cattle with an intact alpha crystallin domain, like other small HSPs. Physico-chemical characteristic of aliphatic index was higher in HSP70 and HSP90 gene families, compared to small HSP and HSP40. Grand average hydropathy showed that small HSP (sHSP), HSP40, HSP70 and HSP90 genes had negative values except for DNAJC22, a member of HSP40 gene family. The uniqueness of DNAJA3 and DNAJB13 among HSP40 members, based on multiple sequence alignment, evolutionary trace analysis and sequence identity dendrograms, suggests evolutionary distinct structural and functional features, with unique roles in substrate recognition and chaperone functions. The monophyletic pattern of the sequence identity dendrograms of cattle, human and mouse HSP sequences suggests functional similarities. Conclusions: Our computational results demonstrate the first-pass in-silico identification of heat shock proteins and calls for further investigation to better understand their functional roles and mechanisms in Bovidae.