Dromedary camels produce more milk for a longer period of time than any other milk animal held under the same harsh conditions. Produced milk is a primary source of some pastoralists' food, nutrition and income security all year round. However, there are limited research efforts on exploiting camel milk potential and its promotion for consumption and marketing. Thus, a cross-sectional survey was conducted on 100 camel herders; nine traders and three cooperatives during March to April 2017 in Afar region of Ethiopia. Besides, discussions were held with district leaders, end consumers and local elders. Collected data were analysed using descriptive statistical tools, figures and diagrams. The survey result revealed that 56.6% camel herds were lactating. Milking was done by men twice (67%) and three times (33%) per day with an average of 4.2 L per camel. A total of 82% of the camel herders were marketers, and women were dominant. Camel herders sold an average of 14.3 L milk per day at an average price of USD 0.95 per litre, whereas middlemen sold an average of 35.8 L at USD 1.22 per litre. The milk trade was done at herders' farm gate (18.3%), main roadsides (58.5%) and nearest towns (23.2%) using small plastic pots (68.3%) and plastic jerrycans (31.7%). Amongst the three marketing channels, 69.9% of the milk was directly sold to end consumers and fetched a higher price than other marketing channels, but the routes are limited to local markets. The camel herders perceived that they satisfied with milk for its nutritional, medicinal, social and economic values. Therefore, interventions need to focus on exploiting opportunities, addressing challenges/constraints in camel milk production and its marketing chain efficiency and effectiveness.

The contribution of beekeeping is perhaps one of the most important income-generating activities for millions of smallholder farmers in Ethiopia. This study was intended to assess beekeeping practices and potential in three districts of Afar Region, northern Ethiopia. Primary data were collected from 120 respondents proportionally selected from each district. Semi-structured questionnaire were employed to collect the primary data. Focus-group discussion was also used to support interpretation of the interview data. Basically, descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data. All respondents use traditional honey production system despite some recent trials. The mean live colony ownership of the sample beekeepers is 10.08 colonies per household, with a maximum ownership of 62 colonies. The study showed that the annual honey production per beehive varies from 4 to 17 kg, with a mean production of 9.66 kg. The majority of the respondents harvest two times per year, while 18%, 19%, and 14.2% of the respondents harvest three, four, and five times per year respectively. This might be due to the special floral calendar of tropical plants found in the areas. 67.5% of respondents supplement their colonies during dry season. Producers travel more than seven kilometres to sell their honey. On average, beekeepers sell 77.86 kg per year individually, with a range of 0 to 353 kg. The main constraints of honey production in the area are recurrent drought, poor extension service, lack of access to improved technology, deforestation, etc. Therefore, it requires intervention to change the old beekeeping practices through training and introducing improved production systems.

Background: Camel are able to survive and well adapted in harsh environment and reproduce in such environment due to their unique physiology and morphology. It is also serves as source of cash income, milk, meat etc. The study was conducted in four districts of Afar Regional State with the objective of determine the breeding practice and correlation of conformation traits with milk offtake of camel. Method: Purposive random sampling were employed to select districts and target farmers. Milk offtake, body and udder conformation traits were taken from 320 she-camels. All the collected data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 20.0 (SPSS, 2017) and index was computed using weight average. Result: The breeding objective of the farmers in the study area were milk, meat, wealth and social statues. Primordial traits preference for selecting breeding she-camel was based on milk yield, body size and conformation, disease resistance, fast growth and adaptation with an index value of 0.119, 0.105, 0.10, 0.096 and 0.094, respectively. Feed and recurrent drought, disease incidence, poor veterinary service, lack of modern breeding program hinders the productive performance whereas, poor feed quality, long age at first service, calving interval, calve mortality and abortion were the major challenges for reproductive performance of she-camels. District had a significant variation on udder and body conformation traits. The mean value of naval height, naval length, body length, foreleg length, hind leg length, pelvic length, height girth and hump circumference were 2.04±0.06, 2.46±0.06, 145±1.39, 149.24±1.30, 163.78±1.19, 25.33±0.31, 236.05±1.47and 78.51±1.06cm, respectively. The average value of milk yield, distance between fore teat, distance between rear teat, fore teat circumference, fore teat height, udder size circumference, udder size height and udder size length were 837.46±7.66, 7.92±0.36, 7.06±0.06, 6.71±0.11, 5.09±0.08, 45.13±1.34, 6.80±0.27 and 14.30±0.33cm, respectively. The correlation coefficient between body conformation trait and milk offtake were significant positively correlated with height at girth and chest length. Highest correlation coefficient was obtained between milk offtake and hind teat circumference, udder size circumference and udder size length.Conclusion: It was concluded that camel had a conceivable for the multiuse role to produce income for pastoral and agro-pastoral livestock keepers.

Inflammasomes are cytoplasmic intracellular multiprotein complexes that control the innate immune system’s activation of inflammation in response to derived chemicals. Recent advancements increased our molecular knowledge of activation of NLRP3 inflammasomes. Although several studies have been done to investigate the role of inflammasomes in innate immunity and other diseases, structural, functional, and evolutionary investigations are needed to further understand the clinical consequences of NLRP3 gene. The purpose of this study is to investigate the structural and functional impact of the NLRP3 protein by using a computational analysis to uncover putative protein sites involved in the stabilization of the protein-ligand complexes with inhibitors. This will allow for a deeper understanding of the molecular mechanism underlying these interactions. It was found that human NLRP3 gene coexpresses with PYCARD, NLRC4, CASP1, MAVS, and CTSB based on observed coexpression of homologs in other species. The NACHT, LRR, and PYD domain-containing protein 3 is a key player in innate immunity and inflammation as the sensor subunit of the NLRP3 inflammasome. The inflammasome polymeric complex, consisting of NLRP3, PYCARD, and CASP1, is formed in response to pathogens and other damage-associated signals (and possibly CASP4 and CASP5). Comprehensive structural and functional analyses of NLRP3 inflammasome components offer a fresh approach to the development of new treatments for a wide variety of human disorders.

Leptin is a polypeptide hormone produced in the adipose tissue and governs many processes in the body. Recently, polymorphisms in the LEP gene revealed a significant change in body weight regulation, energy balance, food intake, and reproductive hormone secretion. This study considers its crucial role in the regulation of the economically important traits of sheep. Several computational tools, including SIFT, Predict SNP2, SNAP2, and PROVEAN, have been used to screen out the deleterious nsSNPs. Following the screening of 11 nsSNPs in the sheep genome, 5 nsSNPs, T86M (C → T), D98N (G → A), N136T (A → C), R142Q (G → A), and P157Q (C → A), were predicted to have a significant deleterious effect on the LEP protein function, leading to phenotypic difference. The analysis of proteins’ stability change due to amino acid substitution using the I-stable, SDM, and DynaMut consistently confirmed that three nsSNPs (T86M (C → T), D98N (G → A), and P157Q (C → A)) increased protein stability. It is suggested that these three nsSNPs may enhance the evolvability of LEP protein, which is vital for the evolutionary adaptation of sheep. Our findings demonstrate that the five nsSNPs reported in this study might be responsible for sheep’s structural and functional modifications of LEP protein. This is the first comprehensive report on the sheep LEP gene. It narrow downs the candidate nsSNPs for in vitro experiments to facilitate the development of reliable molecular markers for associated traits.