Background:  Access to sheep genome sequences significantly improves the chances of identifying genes that may influence the health, welfare, and productivity of these animals.   Methods:  A public, searchable DNA sequence resource for U.S. sheep was created with whole genome sequence (WGS) of 96 rams.  The animals shared minimal pedigree relationships and represent nine popular U.S. breeds and...

The Finnish Landrace (Finnsheep) is a well known high-prolificacy sheep breed and has been used in many countries as a source of genetic material to increase fecundity of local breeds. Analyses to date have indicated that mutations with a large effect on ovulation rate are not responsible for the exceptional prolificacy of Finnsheep. The objectives of this study were to ascertain if: 1) any of ...

In mammals, oocytes within the primordial follicles require a number of essential factors tomaintain their survival. However, the survival factors for activated oocytes have been poorly characterized. Recently we reported that damaged DNA binding protein-1 (DDB1), the linker subunit of the cullin ring-finger ubiquitin E3 ligase-4 (CRL4) complex, and its substrate adaptor,DDB1-CUL4 associated fa...

This study aimed to describe the abundance and localization of BMP2, BMP6, BMP15, GDF9, BMPR1A, BMPR1B, BMPR2 and TGFBR1 mRNA during pig preovulatory follicular development and to evaluate their implication in improving follicular maturity in the preovulatory period preceding the second versus first post-weaning oestrus. Oocytes, granulosa (GC) and theca cells (TC) were recovered from antral fo...

OBJECTIVES The present day challenge is how to obtain germ cells from stem cells to treat patients with cancer and infertility. Much more efforts have been made to develop a procedure for attaining germ cells in vitro. Recently, human umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells (HUMSCs) have been introduced with higher efficacy for differentiation. In this work, we tried to explore the effica...

Access to sheep genome sequences significantly improves the chances Background of identifying genes that may influence the health, welfare, and productivity of these animals. : A public, searchable DNA sequence resource for U.S. sheep was created Methods with whole genome sequence (WGS) of 96 rams. The animals shared minimal pedigree relationships and represent nine popular U.S. breeds and a co...

During mammalian ovarian development transforming growth factor-beta (TGFbeta) superfamily members and their inhibitors are critical paracrine regulators, yet the intraovarian functions of these proteins have received less attention in fish. Using quantitative real-time RT-PCR, changes in ovarian mRNA expression of six TGFbeta members and two inhibitors were investigated in rainbow trout across...

A method to mitigate or possibly eliminate reproduction in farmed fish is highly demanded. The existing approaches have certain applicative limitations. So far, no immunization strategies affecting gonadal development in juvenile animals have been developed. We hypothesized that autoimmune mechanisms, occurring spontaneously in a number of diseases, could be induced by targeted immunization. We...