Pedigree information of 852,443 registered Holstein cows and bulls, collected by the Animal Breeding Center of Iran from 1971 to 2007, was used to calculate inbreeding coefficients and their effect on production, reproduction, somatic cell count, calving ease, and longevity traits. The average inbreeding coefficient for the entire population was 2.90%, ranging from zero to 47.03%. The rates of inbreeding from 1989 to 2007 were 0.22 and 0.15% per year for females and males, respectively. The rates were higher after 2000, being 0.31 and 0.21% per year for females and males, respectively. Inbreeding had a deleterious effect on most traits. For the first 3 lactations, the inbreeding depression per 1% increase in inbreeding was -18.72, -16.19, and -27.38 kg for milk yield, -0.443, -0.367, and -0.690 kg for fat yield, and -0.476, -0.425, and -0.66 kg for protein yield, respectively. For all reproductive traits, the observed undesirable effect of inbreeding was not significant, except for the calving interval (0.53 d per 1% increase in inbreeding) in the third parity and age at first calving (0.45 d per 1% increase in inbreeding). Calving ease in heifers and cows was significantly influenced by the inbreeding of the dam, indicating that highly inbred cows had a higher incidence of difficult calvings. The estimate of inbreeding depression for somatic cell score was low and significant only for the third lactation. However, animals with high inbreeding coefficient tended to have higher somatic cell scores than animals with low inbreeding coefficients. For type traits, the influence of inbreeding was significant only for stature, chest width, body depth, size, rear udder height, suspensory ligament, udder depth, and front and rear teat placement. Cows with high levels of inbreeding coefficient were at higher relative risk of being culled.

No abstract

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), a WHO grade IV malignant glioma, is the most common and lethal primary brain tumor in adults and has but few treatments. The median survival of glioblastoma patients is 12 months. The (possible) relationship between human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection and cancer has been investigated for decades. Detection of viral DNA, mRNA and/or antigens in tumor tissues suggests that HCMV infection has a role to play in the etiology of several human malignancies. HCMV gene products can promote the various signaling pathways critical to tumor growth, including platelet derived growth factor receptor, phosphatidyl inositol 3-kinases (PI3K/AKT), signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 and glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta that are involved in apoptosis, angiogenesis, invasion and immune evasion. Insulin-like growth factor binding protein 2 (IGFBP2) is a biomarker of the PI3K/AKT pathway so we decided to evaluate the expression of this gene in 3 groups: HCMV-negative GBM tissues, HCMV-positive GBM tissues and non-tumor tissues. The presence of HCMV was assessed according to our previous article. HCMV was present in %75 of glioblastoma tissues. Then RNA was extracted, cDNA was synthesized, and real-time PCR was performed. Then, the rate of increased expression was calculated using the Livac or 2(-ΔΔCt). ΔCt of samples in the three groups were compared using analysis of variance (ANOVA). The expression of IGFBP2 gene relative to GAPDH gene in HCMV-negative glioblastoma tissues and HCMV-positive glioblastoma tissues, respectively, was increased 5.486 and 15.032 times compared to non-neoplastic brain tissues. ANOVA tests showed that the difference of mean ΔCt for IGFBP2 gene between healthy subjects and patients with HCMV-positive and HCMV-negative glioblastoma tumors statistically significant.

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is considered to be one of the most invasive human cancers, characterized by a high mortality rate and an average survival is <1 year. These tumors are highly aggressive and insensitive to conventional radio and chemotherapy. An interesting aspect of glioblastoma is the association of active human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection, which is evident by the presence of viral DNA, mRNA and protein level in most glioblastoma tissues. Although the presence of the HCMV infection in glioblastoma is well established, but the oncomodulatory role of HCMV is not defined yet. Enhancer of zeste human homolog 2 (EZH2) is a key protein of the polycomb repressive complex 2, epigenetic gene silencers. There have been several reports that EZH2 activity is essential in GBM pathogenesis. In our previous research, we have found a high rate of HCMV infection in a cohort of Iranian glioblastoma patients. In this study, we investigated the expression of EZH2 in HCMV-negative versus HCMV-positive GBM tissues in comparison to non-tumor tissues. The level of expression was determined by real time PCR and the differences were calculated using the Livac or 2(-ΔΔCt) and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Relative expression of EZH2 in HCMV-negative glioblastoma tissues were increased 6.053-fold compared to non-neoplastic brain tissues, while EZH2 gene expression was increased 41.098-fold in HCMV-positive glioblastoma tissues. ANOVA test showed that there is a significant difference in EZH2 expression between normal brain tissue, HCMV-negative and HCMV-positive glioblastoma tumors (p value = 0.0001). Our data indicate that EZH2 expression can be considered a risk factor in glioblastoma and EZH2 inhibitors may serve as potential new treatment in glioblastoma. This would be an interesting new field to investigate in more detail.

An experiment was conducted to determine dietary energy (ME) and CP requirements of quail chicks using response surface methodology. A total of 40 floor pens of 20 birds each were assigned to 9 diets of central composite design (CCD) containing 5 levels of ME (2,809 to 3,091 kcal/kg) and CP (19 to 24.8% of diet) from 7 to 14 d of age. The experimental results of CCD were fitted with quadratic response models, and ridge analysis was used to compute the optimal response for BW gain (BWG) and feed conversion ratio (FCR). Regression analysis showed that the linear effect of independent variables was significant on bird responses. The quadratic and cross-product effects did not have significant effects on performance. Dietary levels of CP linearly affected BWG and FCR, but the effect of dietary ME was not significant. The ridge maximum analysis on BWG and minimum analysis on FCR models revealed that the maximum BWG may be achieved with 2,950 kcal of ME/kg and 25% CP; and minimum FCR may be obtained with 2,878 kcal of ME/kg and 24.4% CP. The results of this study showed that response surface analysis with the CCD platform was successfully used to optimize dietary requirements of Japanese quail and this methodology could be used for other nutrients.