Housing systems for laboratory animals have been developed over a long time. Micro-environmental systems such as positive, individually ventilated caging systems and forced-air-ventilated systems are increasingly used by many researchers to reduce cross contamination between cages. There have been many investigations of the impact of these systems on the health of animals, the light intensity, ...

Hybrid rice breeding offers an important strategy to improve rice production, in which the cultivation of a male sterile line is the key to the success of cross-breeding. CRISPR/Cas9 systems have been widely used in target-site genome editing, whereas their application for crop genetic improvement has been rarely reported. Here, using the CRISPR/Cas9 system, we induced specific mutations in TMS...

The effects of exogenous melatonin on reproductive performance of 737 Polypay and Polypay-cross ewes were evaluated during a late March and April breeding period. Different concentrations (2 or 10 mg) routes of administration (fed vs implanted) and durations of administration (20 or 40 d before breeding) were studied. Estrus was synchronized in all ewes using 60 mg medroxyprogesterone acetate (...

Climate change leading to increased periods of low water availability as well as increasing demands for food in the coming years makes breeding for drought tolerant crops a high priority. Plants have developed diverse strategies and mechanisms to survive drought stress. However, most of these represent drought escape or avoidance strategies like early flowering or low stomatal conductance that ...

The objective of this study was to estimate genetic parameters and to investigate the type of gene action in controlling androgenesis in wheat. Two wheat cultivars of Grebe and Houtman were reciprocally crossed with two synthetic genotypes of Do1 and Pol and then a complete set of the parents, F1, reciprocal F1 (RF1), F2 and back-cross generations (BC1 and BC2) of each cross were used for anthe...

Breeding values for animals with marker data are estimated using a genomic selection approach where data is analyzed using Bayesian multi-marker association models. Fourteen model scenarios with varying haplotype lengths, hyper parameter and prior distributions were compared to find the scenario expected to give the most correct genomic estimated breeding values for animals with marker informat...

Female rats of ten different inbred strains were tested for their suscep tibility to 7, 12-dimethylbenz|a|anthracene (DMBA)-induced mammary adenocarcinogenesis. Five of these strains (OM. NSD, \VI. LEWIS, BUFF) were demonstrated to be highly susceptible to DMBA exposure developing >2 continuously growing, macroscopically detectable mam mary adenocarcinomas/rat following gastric intubation with ...

Acceleration of genetic improvement of autogamous crops such as wheat and rice is necessary to increase cereal production in response to the global food crisis. Population and pedigree methods of breeding, which are based on inbred line selection, are used commonly in the genetic improvement of autogamous crops. These methods, however, produce a few novel combinations of genes in a breeding pop...