Genetics in horses encompasses the study of hereditary traits and the genetic makeup that influences various characteristics and health conditions in equine populations. This field involves the analysis of genes and their functions, inheritance patterns, and the impact of genetic variations on traits such as coat color, performance ability, and susceptibility to diseases. Research in equine genetics employs techniques such as genome mapping, sequencing, and genetic testing to identify specific genes and mutations associated with these traits. This page gathers peer-reviewed research studies and scholarly articles that explore the genetic basis of equine traits, the methodologies used in genetic research, and the implications for breeding, health management, and conservation of horse breeds.
Hopkins B, O'Connell FM, Hopkins J.DNA fingerprinting techniques were used to try to resolve the parentage of an Exmoor pony foal. Three young Exmoor ponies, one female and two males, shared a paddock and the female subsequently became pregnant. The two possible sires were three-quarter siblings and were also half-siblings to the dam. Southern hybridisation of Exmoor pony DNA with human mini-satellite probes resolved the disputed parentage in spite of the fact that there was a 70 per cent band share between the individuals involved. Colt M6 was 2.06 times more likely to be the father than an uncle, and Colt M3 was 477 times mor...
Warko G, Bostedt H.Eight vital, new-born foals were additionally administered a non-species-specific colostrum-substitute via stomach-tube within the first 18 hours of their life. The substitute had been made of cattle-colostrum. These foals as well as a control-group of eight foals constantly had free access to maternal colostrum. Object of measurement was GGT-activity in the blood-serum. The increase of GGT-activity within the first 24 hours after birth was very low in the control-group (up to 25 U/l), and very high in the tested animals (418 +/- 182 U/l). Obviously there is a direct connection between this ri...
Halldórsdóttir S, Lazary S, Gunnarsson E, Larsen HJ.Three hundred and three horses, exported from Iceland to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland or Germany were tested for their distribution of leucocyte antigens. One hundred and thirty-six horses were affected with summer eczema. The panel of sera recognised the internationally accepted ELA-specificities A 1 to A10, and the nine work shop specificities W 11 to W 15 and W 18 to W 21. Also, some local specificities, characterised in Switzerland (Be I, Be III, Be 8, Be 25, Be 26, Be 27), and two non major histocompatibility complex (MHC)-linked antigens (Ely 1:1, Ely 2) were included. Only one a...
Posnett ES, Fehrsen J, De Waal DT, Ambrosio RE.The ability of the Babesia equi repetitive probes, pSE2 and pSB20, to detect parasites in blood from experimentally infected, naturally infected and carrier animals was tested using a spot hybridization assay. The clinical course of the experimentally infected horses was monitored using microscopy, indirect fluorescent antibody tests, packed cell volume, temperature and the probe assay. The probes sensitively monitored the parasite level during the development of the disease and correlated well with the other parameters tested. The sensitivity of the probe assay was superior to that of light m...
Monet-Kuntz C, Guillou F, Fontaine I, Combarnous Y.Using a suspension of seminiferous tubule cells, we had previously shown that equine FSH is superactive in the male rat, i.e. that it exhibits a higher biological potency than expected from its binding activity. In this work we investigated equine FSH superactivity in rat, pig and sheep, by comparing in each species the equine FSH with the homologous FSH, both for their binding activities (in a radioreceptor assay using a testicular membrane fraction) and for their in vitro biological potencies (in a plasminogen activator assay using a Sertoli cell-enriched population cultured on plastic). In ...
Dougherty DM, Lewis P.Using horses, we investigated three aspects of the stimulus control of lever-pressing behavior: stimulus generalization, discrimination learning, and peak shift. Nine solid black circles, ranging in size from 0.5 in. to 4.5 in. (1.3 cm to 11.4 cm) served as stimuli. Each horse was shaped, using successive approximations, to press a rat lever with its lip in the presence of a positive stimulus, the 2.5-in. (6.4-cm) circle. Shaping proceeded quickly and was comparable to that of other laboratory organisms. After responding was maintained on a variable-interval 30-s schedule, stimulus generalizat...
Pinaud MA, Roser JF, Dybdal N.In vitro responsiveness of the horse anterior pituitary (AP) gonadotropes to single and multiple GnRH challenges was examined. The pituitaries were collected from reproductively sound mares in estrus (n = 5) and diestrus (n = 5). Uniform 0.5 mm AP slices were subdivided using a 3 mm biopsy punch and then bisected for use in the perifusion chamber. Four bisected sections per chamber were perifused at 0.5 ml/min at 37 C for 560 min in Medium 199 saturated with 95% 0(2)/5% CO2. Ten minute fractions were collected after an initial 2 hr equilibration period. Four different treatment regimes of GnRH...
Maede Y, Inaba M, Amano Y, Murase T, Goto I, Itakura C.Cryoglobulin was isolated from a horse which had glomerulo-nephritis and a history of swelling and skin ulcers of the limbs in the winter. The isolated cryoglobulin showed a single peak on a gel permeation chromatography column with an apparent molecular mass (Mr) of 180,000 which could be divided into two gamma bands by cellulose acetate electrophoresis. Immunoelectrophoretic analysis revealed that the cryoglobulin formed two precipitation lines with anti-horse IgG. Spur formation was observed when the cryoglobulin and the IgG purified from a normal healthy horse were cross-reacted with anti-...
den Boon JA, Snijder EJ, Chirnside ED, de Vries AA, Horzinek MC, Spaan WJ.The nucleotide sequence of the genome of equine arteritis virus (EAV) was determined from a set of overlapping cDNA clones and was found to contain eight open reading frames (ORFs). ORFs 2 through 7 are expressed from six 3'-coterminal subgenomic mRNAs, which are transcribed from the 3'-terminal quarter of the viral genome. A number of these ORFs are predicted to encode structural EAV proteins. The organization and expression of the 3' part of the EAV genome are remarkably similar to those of coronaviruses and toroviruses. The 5'-terminal three-quarters of the genome contain the putative EAV p...
Blythe LL, Craig AM, Lassen ED, Rowe KE, Appell LH.Plasma alpha-tocopherol (vitamin E) values were monitored serially in 9 foals sired by a stallion with equine degenerative myeloencephalopathy (EDM) and in 5 age-matched control foals (sired by a clinically normal stallion) raised in the same environment for the first year of life. Clinical evaluation determined that 8 of the 9 foals sired by the stallion with EDM had neurologic deficits consistent with the disease on one or more occasions during the study period, whereas control foals had normal gait. From 6 weeks to 10 months of age, plasma alpha-tocopherol values in foals with signs of EDM ...
Guillemette JG, Matsushima-Hibiya Y, Atkinson T, Smith M.A gene for expression of horse heart myoglobin in Escherichia coli has been constructed in one step from long synthetic oligonucleotides. The synthetic gene contains an efficient translation initiation signal and used codons that are commonly found in E. coli. Unique restriction sites are placed throughout the gene. It has been inserted in a phagemid vector and is expressed from the lac promoter in E. coli at high efficiency, the soluble heme protein representing approximately 10% of soluble protein. Two versions of horse heart myoglobin were produced with aspartic acid or asparagine at residu...
Pickar JG, Spier SJ, Snyder JR, Carlsen RC.A recently described disorder in certain registered Quarter horses bears many clinical similarities to the muscle disease identified as hyperkalemic periodic paralysis (HPP) in humans. Pathological changes in membrane permeability or Na(+)-K+ pump activity have been proposed to produce the muscle depolarization and inexcitability that characterize the condition in humans. Biopsies of external intercostal muscle from normal and affected horses were used to determine whether alterations in either permeability and/or pump activity could be linked to the pathology in horses. Affected horse muscle ...
O'Keefe JS, Murray A, Wilks CR, Moriarty KM.Unpurified DNA derived from cultures of equine fetal kidney cells infected with either equine herpesvirus type 1 or equine herpesvirus type 4 was amplified by the polymerase chain reaction using one pair of oligonucleotide primers. Restriction endonuclease digestion of the amplified segments with PvuII, followed by electrophoresis, revealed restriction fragment length polymorphisms which enabled the two virus types to be differentiated.
Schuberth HJ, Hadam M, Leibold W.The determination of differentiation and transplantation antigens will be of growing importance in immune diagnosis for individual animals as well as for breeding purposes in populations. Differentiation antigens characterize subsets of cell populations and indicate their functional capacity while transplantation antigens represent markers of individuals of a species. Occurrence and significance of these antigenic systems are briefly reviewed.
Silvia PJ, Fitzgerald BP.An attenuated ovulatory rise in circulating concentrations of LH is characteristically associated with the first seasonal reproductive cycle of horse mares. Unlike ovulations (OV) of subsequent estrous cycles, the first OV of the breeding season (OV1) is not preceded by elevated concentrations of progesterone (PROG). Hence, the ability of pretreatment with PROG to abolish attenuation of LH-secretion associated with OV1 was investigated. Ten nonpregnant anestrous mares were randomly divided into 2 groups; control (C) and treated (T). Per individual, when diameter of the largest follicle was con...
Stewart F, Tuffnell PP.A 514 bp cDNA transcript coding for 78% of horse (Equus caballus.) GH has been cloned and sequenced. The deduced amino acid sequence corresponded precisely to that previously obtained by protein sequencing and, in addition, provided new sequence information for the signal peptide. The missing 3' fragment of the cDNA was reconstructed using synthetic oligonucleotides and site-specific directed mutagenesis. The complete cDNA sequence was then inserted into an expression vector (PIN-III-lppp-5) which utilizes a bacterial signal peptide to secrete the expressed product into the periplasmic space o...
Borroto-Esoda K, Boone LR.The endogenous reverse transcriptase reaction of equine infectious anemia virus (EIAV) has been studied, and conditions allowing synthesis of full-length minus-strand DNA have been determined. In contrast to results reported for other retroviruses, synthesis of EIAV full-length minus-strand DNA was not impaired by high concentrations of Nonidet P-40, a nonionic detergent used to make the virion envelope permeable. All components of the reaction were titrated for maximum synthesis of complete minus strands, and a time course under the standardized conditions was determined. Minor subgenomic ban...
Freeman DE, Spencer PA.Age, breed, and gender distributions of 168 horses with umbilical hernia treated at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine were analyzed to determine risk factors for this disease. For the 3 breeds that constituted the largest proportion of hospital and case populations, Thoroughbred, Standardbred, and Quarter Horse, the overall ratio of females to males was 1.63. In a hospital population of the same age group, 0 to 48 months, the female to male ratio was 0.93. Compared with males, females were at significantly higher risk for umbilical hernia after adjustment for breed a...
Blythe LL, Hultgren BD, Craig AM, Appell LH, Lassen ED, Mattson DE, Duffield D.A clinical, viral, hematologic , and genetic study was conducted over a 4-year period on a family of Appaloosas with high incidence of clinical ataxia and pathologic features of equine degenerative myeloencephalopathy. Marginal to deficient serum vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol) and blood selenium values were the only other consistent antemortem abnormalities in the affected horses. Members of this family were all descendants of a clinically normal mare and were raised in 3 separate environments with variable quality of feed. All horses had access to pasture grasses. Normal chromosomal karyotypes ...
Peyton DH.Specific heme protons for the majority of resonances in the downfield resolved region of equine met-azido myoglobin have been assigned using solely the two-dimensional 1H NMR experiments NOESY and COSY. Metazido myoglobin provides a useful test case for the applicability of these techniques to paramagnetic proteins for the following reasons. First met-azido myoglobin is a mixed spin-state protein, with significantly shorter relaxation times and broadened lines relative to pure low-spin systems (eg., met-cyano myoglobin). Second, met-azido hemoglobin and met-azido myoglobin are important as mod...
Dintinger T, Gaillard JL, Zwain I, Bouhamidi R, Silberzahn P.The results of the measurement of 19-nortestosterone in the testiscular artery and vein of the stallion, the very low levels of this steroid in the peripheral blood of geldings and the similar patterns of increase in the peripheral levels of 19-nortestosterone and testosterone after hCG stimulation, show that 19-nortestosterone, like testosterone, is essentially synthesized in the testis. This testicular origin was confirmed by the ability of testicular tissue to synthesize 19-norandrogens from [4-14C]androgens in vitro. 19-Nortestosterone was 50% conjugated in the peripheral blood and almost ...
Duarte PC, Ribeiro RM, Machado ART, Faleiros RR, Pimenta LPS, Filho JDS.The incidence of equine metabolic syndrome, a condition that results in endocrinopathic laminitis, is increasing worldwide. Although it is well known that the development of this syndrome depends on imbalances in energy metabolism and genetic traits, its pathophysiology remains unclear. Hydrogen nuclear magnetic resonance (H NMR) is a powerful tool used to compare metabolic profiles and to discriminate metabolites in living beings. The aim was to apply this technology to detect blood biomarkers candidates in horses that were previously demonstrated to developed metabolic changes when subjected...
Onder Z, Duzlu O, Yildirim A, Ciloglu A, Okur M, Inci A.This study reports intense horn fly infestations of horses raised in an important wetland ecosystem, Sultan Marshes in Central Anatolia, Turkey. In total, seven horses raised together were found to be harbored over 500 flies per site of each animal. Totally, 376 fly specimens were collected from the horses by using the nets and were subjected to the laboratory for species identification. All flies were morphologically identified as the adults of Haematobia irritans. Partial fragments of mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I (mt-COI) gene from totally 50 isolates were amplified for sequence and ph...
Barbis DP, Bainbridge D, Crump AL, Zhang CH, Antczak DF.A panel of monoclonal antibodies was used to characterize the expression of equine Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) class II antigens on lymphocytes of horses of different MHC types. MHC class II antigen expression was compared between adult horses and foals, and the level of expression of MHC class II antigens on horse T cell subpopulations was also determined. Peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) from young and adult healthy horses of different MHC haplotypes were labeled with the antibodies and assayed by single- and two-color immunofluorescence flow cytometry. A variation in the expres...
Bastos MS, Solar Diaz IDP, Alves JS, de Oliveira LSM, de Araújo de Oliveira CA, de Godói FN, de Camargo GMF, Costa RB.The measurement of morphometric traits in horses is important for determining breed qualification and is one of the main selection criteria for the species. The development of an index (HPC) that consists of principal components weighted by additive genetic values allows to explore the most relevant relationships using a reduced number of variables that explain the greatest amount of variation in the data. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) using HPC are a relatively new approach that permits to identify regions related to a set of traits. The aim of this study was to perform GWAS using HP...
Hassan Kadi R, Baghdadi AM.Lactic acid bacteria are microorganisms that can be present in meat, milk and fermented products, as well as fermented drinks and vegetables, and they inhibit the growth of pathogenic and decaying microorganisms. Our aim was isolating, screening, characterization and estimation of bacteriocin/s of Lactic acid bacteria isolated from Horses milk in Jeddah city, Saudi Arabia. That have antagonistic activity against a wide range of pathogenic bacteria. On MRS agar medium 16 LAB isolates were examined using the agar well diffusion method against the pathogenic bacteria (Gram-positive bacteria: S. a...
Cozzi MC, Valiati P, Longeri M, Ferreira C, Abreu Ferreira S.The Lusitano Horse (LH) originates from Portugal, but is reared worldwide. Since 1994, the University of Milan has routinely tested the LHs bred in Italy for parentage control. This study aims to assess the genetic variability of the LH reared in Italy using 16 microsatellites markers. Moreover, the genetic variability changes over the years in the total population (n.384) and in unrelated horses (n.47) were evaluated. Horses were grouped according to their date of birth (1975-1990, 1991-2000, 2001-2010, 2010-2019). Standard genetic diversity parameters, including observed (Ho) and expected (H...
Yamashita J, Oki H, Hasegawa T, Honda T, Nomura T.To investigate the breeding structure in the Japanese Thoroughbred population, we applied a demographic analysis to the populations of foals produced from 1978 to 2005. The migration rate estimated from the proportion of foals produced by imported breeding horses was around 40% over the investigated period. After early 1990s, the migration rate through stallions imported from USA sharply increased. The average generation interval was within range of 10.5-11.5 years. The longer generation interval of Thoroughbred was considered to be a reflection of the fact that Thoroughbred horses begin breed...
Jacob RJ.Preliminary experiments have revealed that several laboratory and wild-type strains of the equine herpesvirus (EHV) triad were temperature-sensitive for growth when assayed at 39 degrees C. The efficiencies of plating (EOP) observed were 10(-2) for both EHV 1 and 2, and 1 X 10(-6) for EHV 3. The EOPs were determined by plaque assays which compared titrations at 34 degrees C and 39 degrees C on equine fetal dermal fibroblast cells. Growth yield experiments, assayed at 34 degrees C, reflected those EOP's, but did not indicate any difference in yields when infected cultures were incubated at 34 d...
Ruggeri E, DeLuca KF, Galli C, Lazzari G, DeLuca JG, Stokes JE, Carnevale EM.Confocal microscopy was used to image stages of equine zygote development, at timed intervals, after intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) of oocytes that were matured in vivo or in vitro. After fixation for 4, 6, 8, 12, or 16 h after ICSI, zygotes were incubated with α/β tubulin antibodies and human anticentromere antibody (CREST/ACA), washed, incubated in secondary antibodies, conjugated to either Alexa 488 or Alexa 647, and incubated with 561-Phalloidin and Hoechst 33258. An Olympus IX81 spinning disk confocal microscope was used for imaging. Data were analyzed using χ 2 and Fisher's e...
Ząbek T, Witarski W, Szmatoła T, Sawicki S, Mrozowicz J, Samiec M.Epigenetic mechanisms of gene regulation are important for the proper differentiation of cells used for therapeutic and regenerative purposes. The primary goal of the present study was to investigate the impacts of 5-aza-2' deoxycytidine (5-AZA-dc)- and/or trichostatin A (TSA)-mediated approaches applied to epigenomically modulate the ex vivo expanded equine chondrocytes maintained in monolayer culture on the status of chondrogenic cytodifferentiation at the transcriptome level. The results of next-generation sequencing of 3' mRNA-seq libraries on stimulated and unstimulated chondrocytes of th...
Diesterbeck U, Distl O.Navicular disease or podotrochlosis has long been known to cause forelimb lameness in horses. It had been proposed that the development of podotrochlosis has similarities to the human osteoarthritis (OA) complex. Alterations of the navicular bone can be made visible early in life only on the basis of radiographs. Reports on the prevalences of navicular disease indicate that radiological alterations in the navicular bone are present in different warmblood populations at frequencies of between 14.9% and 87.6%. Genetic factors play an important role in the development of the radiological signs. E...
Machida N, Tanaka Y, Taya K, Nakamura T.A case of congenital ovarian interstitial cell hamartoma in a thoroughbred foal that died of apparent nutritional myopathy (white-muscle disease) 14 h after birth is described. An incidental finding at necropsy was a pale brown, mushroom-shaped, pedunculated mass (6 x 4 x 3 cm) attached to the left ovary. On the cut surface, the mass had a peripheral rim of dense parenchyma (3-5 mm wide), surrounding a pale gelatinous core. Histologically, the mass consisted of a peripheral zone of densely packed large cells that were quite similar, morphologically, to fetal ovarian interstitial cells, and a c...
Veeraragavan K, Singh K, Wachter E, Hochstrasser K.A trypsin inhibitor was isolated from pregnant mares' urine by adsorption on bentonite and elution with aqueous pyridine followed by batch DEAE-cellulose treatment and column chromatography. Final purification to an electrophoretically homogenous glycoprotein was achieved by gel permeation chromatography. This equine urinary trypsin inhibitor (E-UTI) is acid- and heat-stable, has a molecular weight of 22 to 23 kDa, an isoelectric point of 4.55, forms a 1:1 molar complex with trypsin and has serine as its N-terminal amino acid. The N-terminal amino acid sequence of this protein is almost identi...
Soutullo A, García MI, Bailat A, Racca A, Tonarelli G, Malan Borel I.Equine infectious anemia virus (EIAV) is a lentivirus causing a persistent infection in horses characterized by recurrent febrile episodes and high levels of viremia associated with a novel antigenic strain of the virus. The virus contains two envelope glycoproteins, gp90 and gp45, and four internal proteins, p26, p15, p11 and p9. Considering that the most infected horses are able to restrict EIAV replication to very low levels and that gp45 and p26 contain highly conserved epitopes among lentiviruses, it would be necessary to identify those conserved epitopes stimulating cellular and humoral ...
Guillaume D, Zarazaga LA, Malpaux B, Chemineau P.In long-day breeders like horses, the length of nocturnal melatonin secretion is the main messenger of photoperiod. Previous studies have shown that the nocturnal jugular melatonin concentration is lower in horses, than in mules but is unknown in donkeys. The aim of this study was to estimate the inter-animal variability of plasma melatonin concentration in domestic mares and to compare this concentration with those observed in domestic jennies and in their hybrid mules. In the autumn, blood samples were collected at 22 h, 23 h, 0 h and 1 h during 2 nights at 3 weeks intervals, in 110 pony mar...
Gray AW, Davies ME, Jeffcott LB.We report on novel methods to isolate osteoclasts (OC s) and generate osteoclast-like cells (OCL s) from the bone and bone marrow of the equine femur. OC s were successfully isolated from bone scrapings taken from the endosteal surface of the femurs of three horses. OCL s were generated from bone marrow cells taken from the same animals. The validity of using the formation of OCL s as a method for studying OC differentiation and activity was confirmed by the similar characteristics of these two cells. In particular, they both were multinuclear, expressed the enzyme tartrate resistant acid phos...
Bio SystemsFebruary 27, 2023
Volume 225 104871 doi: 10.1016/j.biosystems.2023.104871
Bhattacharjee S.Adaptations in equine limbs, including fusion of its bones, such as the metapodials II and IV (splint bones) with metapodial III (cannon bone), have been debated. It is argued that cursorial adaptations in equine limbs with a progressive reduction in the number of digits lighten up the limbs and facilitate fast running. Similar fusions in other bones, such as the radius and ulna, tend to exhibit similar traits. For example, the fusion often occurs in a disto-proximal direction while leaving sharp ridges. This article proposes a model to understand the biomechanical advantages that a fused symm...
Moudgal NR, Papkoff H.The ability of equine luteinizing hormone (eLH) to promote follicular growth and maturation in hypophysectomized rats has been assessed. A single injection of equine LH has been shown to promote the growth of a large number of antral and preovulatory follicles. In addition, equine LH markedly increased serum estrogen levels and uterine weight. Furthermore, equine LH, like equine chorionic gonadotropin (eCG; PMSG) was able to significantly enhance the incorporation of [3H]thymidine into ovarian DNA, an activity shown to be specific to hormones having follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) activity....
Bonass WA, Hudson WA, Elton DM, Killington RA, Halliburton IW.Restriction enzyme digests of DNA from 22 unselected isolates of EHV-1 were analysed by hybridization with cloned DNA fragments covering the genome. In addition to a small amount of inter-strain variation, heterogeneity within strains was observed, caused by loss of specific restriction endonuclease sites in the DNA of a proportion of the virus particles of any one stock. Fifteen strains demonstrated the same intra-strain variation involving loss of the BamHI L-M site which was shown to lie within coding sequence for the large subunit of ribonucleotide reductase. This particular mutation may t...
Lopes MS, Diesterbeck U, Machado Ada C, Distl O.Navicular disease is characterized by a progressive degenerative alteration of the equine podotrochlea. In this study, we refined a previously identified quantitative trait locus (QTL) on horse chromosome 10 for the abnormal development of canales sesamoidales (DCS) of the navicular bone in Hanoverian warmblood horses. Genotyping was done in 192 Hanoverian warmblood horses from 17 paternal half-sib groups. The whole marker set comprised 45 markers including seven newly developed microsatellites and 13 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within positional candidate genes. Chromosome-wide sig...
Poskus E, Peña C, Pérez AR, Vita N, Heinrich JJ, Paladini AC.The immunological behavior of sera from hypopituitary patients treated with human GH (hGH) has been studied by homologous and heterologous RIAs using 125I-labeled hormones. Along with antibodies against hGH, antibodies exhibiting antibovine and antiequine GH (anti-bGH and anti-eGH, respectively) activities were also found. Displacement experiments showed that hGH was an effective competitor of 125 I-labeled hGH, whereas bGH and eGH were quite inefficient. Conversely, when the tracer was 125I-labeled bGH, both bGH and eGH were good displacers, while the human hormone was poor. The values of the...
Bernor RL, Cirilli O, Bukhsianidze M, Lordkipanidze D, Rook L.The Equus datum has been established as a geochronologic 'instantaneous' migratory event of a North American Equus species into Eurasia at the beginning of the Pleistocene (2.58 Ma). A remarkable radiation of Equus followed across Eurasia and Africa. Dmanisi includes excellent remains of Equus, well calibrated between 1.85 and 1.76 Ma. Our morphologic and morphometric analyses of the augmented Dmanisi Equus sample support the co-occurrence of Equus stenonis and Equus altidens in the sequence. Dmanisi E. stenonis is found to be morphologically similar to the European E. stenonis populations a...
Juneja RK, Andersson L, Sandberg K, Gahne B, Adalsteinsson S, Gunnarsson E.Two-dimensional agarose gel (pH 8.6)-horizontal polyacrylamide gel (pH 9.0) electrophoresis of horse serum proteins revealed genetic polymorphism of ceruloplasmin (Cp) and two unidentified serum proteins tentatively designated serum protein 1 (SP1) and serum protein 2 (SP2). Family data were consistent with the hypothesis that the observed Cp and SP1 phenotypes were each controlled by two codominant, autosomal alleles. The three common SP2 phenotypes were shown to be controlled by two codominant, autosomal alleles. Population data and limited family data indicated the occurrence of two additio...
Ikechukwu CK, Qin K, Zhang H, Pan J, Zhang W.Papillomaviruses can be of great medical importance as they infect humans and animals such as Equus species, other livestock and pets. They are responsible for several papillomas and benign tumours in their host. Objective: To describe a novel equid papillomavirus detected in oral swab samples collected from donkeys (Equus asinus) found on the Northwest plateau of China. Methods: Cross-sectional. Methods: Swab samples collected from the oral mucosa of 32 donkeys in the Gansu Province of China, were subjected to viral metagenomic analysis to detect the presence of Papillomavirus. After de novo ...
Zabel S, Mueller RS, Fieseler KV, Bettenay SV, Littlewood JD, Wagner R.The records of 15 horses with pemphigus foliaceus diagnosed on the basis of their history, clinical signs, histopathology and the exclusion of differential diagnoses were evaluated with respect to the age of onset, the clinical signs and the diagnostic tests used. There was no apparent breed predisposition. The horses' mean age was nine years, with a range from three months to 25.5 years, three were foals up to six months old and eight were nine years old or older. The most frequent lesions were scaling in 11, crusting in 10 and alopecia in 10, and they appeared most commonly on the face, neck...
Lorenzo PL, Liu IK, Illera JC, Picazo RA, Carneiro GF, Illera MJ, Conley AJ, Enders AC, Illera M.Epidermal growth factor (EGF) has been reported to promote different functions in mammalian ovaries, including oocyte maturation. The aim of the present study was to establish: that EGF influences oocyte maturation in ovine and equine, that a tyrosine kinase-dependent intracellular mechanism mediates EGF effect and, that EGF-R receptor is detectable in ovarian follicles by immunohistochemistry methods. Selected ovine and equine oocytes were aspirated from 2-5 mm (ovine) or 25 mm (equine) follicles and cultured in TCM 199 for 22 (ovine) or 36 hours (equine). They are then subjected to culture w...
Maede Y, Inaba M, Amano Y, Murase T, Goto I, Itakura C.Cryoglobulin was isolated from a horse which had glomerulo-nephritis and a history of swelling and skin ulcers of the limbs in the winter. The isolated cryoglobulin showed a single peak on a gel permeation chromatography column with an apparent molecular mass (Mr) of 180,000 which could be divided into two gamma bands by cellulose acetate electrophoresis. Immunoelectrophoretic analysis revealed that the cryoglobulin formed two precipitation lines with anti-horse IgG. Spur formation was observed when the cryoglobulin and the IgG purified from a normal healthy horse were cross-reacted with anti-...
Iametti BS, Tedeschi G, Oungre E, Bonomi F.In this work the purification and the complete primary structure of kappa-casein from equine milk are reported for the first time. Mares' milk casein was separated by RP-HPLC into four fractions. Complete primary sequence was obtained by sequence analysis of the protein in the fastest eluting peak isolated by chromatography. This sequence was 95% identical to that reported for the C-terminal portion of the zebras' kappa-casein and showed high similarity with kappa-caseins from sources other than Equidae, confirming that this protein was indeed kappa-casein in equine milk. The presence of post-...
Pedersen HG, Watson ED, Telfer EE.During the oestrous cycle follicles grow and either ovulate or regress. Regressing follicles undergo atresia and in many species apoptosis has been identified as the underlying mechanism in this process. The aims of this study were to establish whether equine granulosa cells degenerate via an apoptotic mechanism and whether the presence of apoptotic cell death in granulosa cells is correlated with oocyte quality. Ovaries from mares at unknown stages of the oestrous cycle were obtained from an abattoir. In Expt 1, follicles (n=352) from 37 mares were processed. DNA was extracted from granulosa ...