Research on gene regulation has been made possible with the help of RNA sequencing applications such as RNA-Seq technology for high-throughput sequencing platforms. Recent studies have explored the transcriptomes from different tissues of domestic animals using RNA-Seq technology, but little research has been done to study the transcriptomes of breeds of sheep having different adipose tissue deposition mechanisms, such as Mongolian and Lanzhou fat-tailed sheep.
The northern region of Brazil produces a large number of sheep, with Pará being the largest sheep breeding state in the region. In the Amazon region, livestock production is a challenge due to the high diversity of pathogens affecting humans and animals. Defensins are antimicrobial peptides acting as a first barrier against micro-organisms and present high variation in different organisms. The objective of this study was to detect polymorphisms in exon II in β-defensin II in Amazon sheep.
Tail fat content affects meat quality, and it varies in different sheep breeds. Theoretically, lipid metabolism contributes to variation in tail fat content. Tail length, tail width, and tail girth were measured in live Tong sheep (with both short fat tail and long fat tail), Shaanbei fine wool sheep (long thin tail), Tan sheep (short fat tail), Kazakh sheep (hip fat tail), and Tibetan sheep (short thin tail).
The objective of this study was to verify whether Toxoplasma gondii is excreted in the milk of naturally infected sheep. In order to accomplish this, 275 lactating ewes were used; these were bred extensively in 17 estates distributed across nine cities. Polymerase chain reaction amplification was used to detect T. gondii DNA in milk samples, and the indirect immunofluorescence test was employed for the detection of anti-T. gondii IgG antibodies in the sera, with a cut-off value of 1:64.
