Species comparison in horses involves examining the physiological, anatomical, and behavioral differences and similarities between horses and other animal species. This area of study can provide insights into the evolutionary adaptations and ecological roles of horses. Researchers often focus on aspects such as digestive systems, locomotion, sensory capabilities, and social structures to understand how horses have evolved to meet their environmental and survival needs. Comparative studies may also explore genetic differences and similarities, contributing to a broader understanding of species evolution and adaptation. This page aggregates peer-reviewed research and scholarly articles that analyze various aspects of species comparison involving horses, highlighting significant findings and methodologies used in the field.
Oreff GL, Fenu M, Vogl C, Ribitsch I, Jenner F.For research on tendon injury, many different animal models are utilized; however, the extent to which these species simulate the clinical condition and disease pathophysiology has not yet been critically evaluated. Considering the importance of inflammation in tendon disease, this study compared the cellular and molecular features of inflammation in tenocytes of humans and four common model species (mouse, rat, sheep, and horse). While mouse and rat tenocytes most closely equalled human tenocytes' low proliferation capacity and the negligible effect of inflammation on proliferation, the wound...
We evaluated the influences of workload intensity, bath handling and environmental conditions in the rolling behaviour of horses and mules. For this purpose, animals were observed after being exposed to different levels of workload and the rolling behaviour was recorded and described. During all testing procedures, the weather condition (temperature and humidity) was registered by a Black globe and Wet Bulb apparatus. Horses frequently rolled after intense exercise and after bath handling, independently of the weather condition. Mules frequently rolled after control (no exercise) and intense e...
McElroy A, Klinge PM, Sledge D, Donahue JE, Glabman RA, Rashmir A.The objectives of this study were to describe the anatomy, histology, and ultrastructure of the equine filum terminale (FT) and to describe the FT in hereditary equine regional dermal asthenia (HERDA), a model of human Ehlers-Danlos syndromes (EDS). Those humans suffer from tethered cord syndrome (TCS) caused by an abnormally structured FT wherein its attachment at the base of the vertebral column leads to long-term stretch-induced injury to the spinal cord. The pathophysiology of TCS in EDS is poorly understood, and there is a need for an animal model of the condition. Histopathologic and ult...
The Bering Land Bridge (BLB) last connected Eurasia and North America during the Late Pleistocene. Although the BLB would have enabled transfers of terrestrial biota in both directions, it also acted as an ecological filter whose permeability varied considerably over time. Here we explore the possible impacts of this ecological corridor on genetic diversity within, and connectivity among, populations of a once wide-ranging group, the caballine horses (Equus spp.). Using a panel of 187 mitochondrial and eight nuclear genomes recovered from present-day and extinct caballine horses sampled acros...
Gacem S, Valverde A, Catalán J, Yánez Ortiz I, Soler C, Miró J.This study aimed to characterize the sperm kinematic values with high frames per second, to define the subpopulation structure of a horse and a donkey and compare them. A total of 57 fresh semen ejaculates (26 Spanish and 16 Arabian horse breeds and 10 donkeys) were collected and subsequently analyzed for kinematic parameters using the Computer-aided sperm motility analysis ISAS®v1.2 system and using a Spermtrack® 10-μm depth counting chamber. Sequences were recorded at 250 frames per second, and eight kinematic parameters were automatically evaluated. All kinematic parameters showed signif...
Kefena E, Rosenbom S, Beja-Pereira A, Kurtu MY, Han JL, Dessie T.We investigated the genetic diversity and population genetic structure of six morphologically distinct Ethiopian donkey populations using 12 equine microsatellite markers. The donkey populations were Abyssinian (AB), Afar (AF), Hararghe (HA), Ogaden (OG), Omo (OM) and Sinnar (SI). Blood samples were collected from 180 genetically unrelated donkeys (30 individuals per population). Population genetic diversity estimates showed that total number and mean number of observed alleles, average observed and expected heterozygosity were 94, 5.208 ± 0.0229, 0.555 ± 0.023 and 0.588 ± 0.022, respective...
Cirilli O, Pandolfi L, Rook L, Bernor RL.Evolution of the genus Equus has been a matter of long debate with a multitude of hypotheses. Currently, there is no consensus on either the taxonomic content nor phylogeny of Equus. Some hypotheses segregate Equus species into three genera, Plesippus, Allohippus and Equus. Also, the evolutionary role of European Pleistocene Equus stenonis in the origin of the zebra-ass clade has been debated. Studies based on skull, mandible and dental morphology suggest an evolutionary relationship between North American Pliocene E. simplicidens and European and African Pleistocene Equus. In this contributio...
Park T, Yoon J, Kim A, Unno T, Yun Y.(1) Background: The large intestine of horses is an anaerobic fermentative chamber filled with fibrolytic bacteria that play essential roles in digesting and absorbing nutrients for energy production. Although Jeju horses are a prominent local breed in Korea, few studies have investigated the gut microbiota of Jeju horses; (2) Methods: This study performed sequencing of V3 and V4 hypervariable regions of the partial 16S rRNA genes obtained from horse fecal samples and compared the gut microbiota between Jeju and Thoroughbred horses. Thirty and 24 fecal samples were obtained from Jeju and Thoro...
Kalmykov NP.This report analyzes a find of fossils of Pliocene three-toed horse (Hipparion tchicoicum) in western Transbaikalia. The age of the mammalian fauna from red-brown clay in the Udunga locality indicates that Chikoi hipparion lived in the south of Eastern Siberia as early as the second half of the Early Pliocene; its remains in this area were known only from the red beds of the Upper Pliocene. This find made it possible to fill the existing hiatus (Early Pliocene) in its stratigraphic distribution: Late Miocene-Late Pliocene. The range of this three-toed horse species did not go beyond the border...
Castellaro G, Orellana CL, Escanilla JP.For an adequate management of natural grasslands, the knowledge and understanding of the dietary habits of herbivores and their trophic interactions are fundamental. During two summer seasons, in a mountain range of a sector of the Coquimbo Region, Chile, the botanical composition, diversity, and similarity of the diets of horses, European brown hares, and guanacos were studied, as was the selectivity of the main grassland plant species, using feces microhistology. The contribution of hydromorphic grasses was similar in the diets of guanacos (35.90 ± 7.27%) and horses (32.25 ± 4.50%), differ...
Senefeld JW, Shepherd JRA, Baker SE, Joyner MJ.Elite performing men continue to record faster record times in running events compared to women. These sex-based differences in running speed and endurance in humans are expected based on sexual dimorphisms that contribute to differences in the determinants of aerobic performance. Comparatively, the sexual dimorphisms contributing to sex-based differences in elite aerobic performance are not ubiquitous across other species that compete in running events. The purpose of this review is to offer a framework and model for ongoing discussions of the physiological determinants and ultimately limits ...
Wang X, Bou G, Zhang X, Tao L, Shen Y, Na R, Liu G, Ren H, Ren X, Song L, Su S, Bai D, Zhao Y, Li B, Dugarjaviin M.Having considered that the current methods are costly and time-consuming, we designed an only 3 pairs primer-based PCR test to accurately identify the species and gender in horses, donkeys, mules and hinnies. Through a thorough sequence comparison between horse and donkey's highly similar genomes, and a vast amount of preliminary confirmation, we found that three fragments, CNGB3 gene on an autosome, displacement loop region on mitochondrial DNA and SRY genes on chromosome Y, within these equine DNA, are enough to enable us achieving our goal. The PCR test described here would be an economical...
Kosinska MK, Eichner G, Schmitz G, Liebisch G, Steinmeyer J.The current limitations in evaluating synovial fluid (SF) components in health and disease and between species are due in part to the lack of data on normal SF, because of low availability of SF from healthy articular joints. Our study aimed to quantify species-dependent differences in phospholipid (PL) profiles of normal knee SF obtained from equine and human donors. Knee SF was obtained during autopsy by arthrocentesis from 15 and 13 joint-healthy human and equine donors, respectively. PL species extracted from SF were quantitated by mass spectrometry whereas ELISA determined apolipoprotein ...
Mukhtar AH, Alqutub MN.The aim of this study was to compare between equine and human bone blocks in the osteogenic differentiation of cultured human periodontal ligament stem cells (hPDLSCs) at 14 and 21 days of culture, using confocal laser microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. Methods: cultures of commercially obtained hPDLSCs were seeded onto equine and human bone blocks. At 14 days and 21 days of culture, confocal laser microscope images were obtained to assess cellular differentiation and adhesion, and scanning electron microscope images were obtained to validate the osteogenic differentiation by showin...
Taylor WTT, Barrón-Ortiz CI.Despite its transformative impact on human history, the early domestication of the horse (Equus caballus) remains exceedingly difficult to trace in the archaeological record. In recent years, a scientific consensus emerged linking the Botai culture of northern Kazakhstan with the first domestication of horses, based on compelling but largely indirect archaeological evidence. A cornerstone of the archaeological case for domestication at Botai is damage to the dentition commonly linked with the use of bridle mouthpieces, or "bit wear." Recent archaeogenetic analyses reveal, however, that horse r...
Smith RKW, McIlwraith CW.Tendinopathy remains one of the most common musculoskeletal disorders affecting both human and equine athletes and presents a considerable therapeutic challenge. The following workshop report comes from the third Dorothy Havemeyer Symposium of Tendinopathy which provided a unique overview of our current understanding of both the basic science and the clinical challenges for diagnosing and treating tendinopathy in both species. Pathologically, tendon demonstrates alterations in both cellular, molecular, structural, and biomechanical features, leading to a spectrum of pathological endotypes. To ...
Lee S, Baker ME, Clinton M, Taylor SE.Despite many recent advances in imaging and epidemiological data analysis, musculoskeletal injuries continue to be a welfare issue in racehorses. Peptide biomarker studies have failed to consistently predict bone injury. Molecular profiling studies provide an opportunity to study equine musculoskeletal disease. A systematic review of the literature was performed using preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses protocols (PRISMA-P) guidelines to assess the use of miRNA profiling studies in equine and human musculoskeletal injuries. Data were extracted from 40 papers betw...
Cequier A, Sanz C, Rodellar C, Barrachina L.The differentiation ability of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) initially raised interest for treating musculoskeletal injuries in horses, but MSC paracrine activity has widened their scope for inflammatory and immune-mediated pathologies in both equine and human medicine. Furthermore, the similar etiopathogenesis of some diseases in both species has advanced the concept of "One Medicine, One Health". This article reviews the current knowledge on the use of MSCs for equine pathologies beyond the locomotor system, highlighting the value of the horse as translational model. Ophthalmologic and repro...
Mirror self-recognition (MSR), investigated in primates and recently in non-primate species, is considered a measure of self-awareness. Nowadays, the only reliable test for investigating MSR potential skills consists in the untrained response to a visual body mark detected using a reflective surface. Here, we report the first evidence of MSR at group level in horses, by facing the weaknesses of methodology present in a previous pilot study. Fourteen horses were used in a 4-phases mirror test (covered mirror, open mirror, invisible mark, visible colored mark). After engaging in a series of cont...
Kusliy MA, Vorobieva NV, Tishkin AA, Makunin AI, Druzhkova AS, Trifonov VA, Iderkhangai TO, Graphodatsky AS.The Mongolian horse is one of the most ancient and relatively unmanaged horse breeds. The population history of the Mongolian horse remains poorly understood due to a lack of information on ancient and modern DNA. Here, we report nearly complete mitochondrial genome data obtained from five ancient Mongolian horse samples of the Khereksur and Deer Stone culture (late 2nd to 1st third of the 1st millennium BC) and one ancient horse specimen from the Xiongnu culture (1st century BC to 1st century AD) using target enrichment and high-throughput sequencing methods. Phylogenetic analysis involving a...
Osborn ML, Cornille JL, Blas-Machado U, Uhl EW.Navicular syndrome has been traditionally characterized by progressive lameness with chronic degeneration of the navicular bone. Advances in imaging techniques have revealed that its associated soft tissue structures are also affected. This distribution of lesions is explained by conceptualizing the equine navicular apparatus as an enthesis organ that facilitates the dissemination of mechanical stress throughout the tissues of the foot. The navicular apparatus has the same structural adaptations to mechanical stress as the human Achilles tendon complex. These adaptations efficiently dissipate ...
Dini P, Carossino M, Balasuriya UBR, El-Sheikh Ali H, Loux SC, Esteller-Vico A, Scoggin KE, Loynachan AT, Kalbfleisch T, De Spiegelaere W, Daels P....RTL1 (retrotransposon Gag-like 1) is an essential gene in the development of the human and murine placenta. Several fetal and placental abnormalities such as intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) and hydrops conditions have been associated with altered expression of this gene. However, the function of RTL1 has not been identified. RTL1 is located on a highly conserved region in eutherian mammals. Therefore, the genetic and molecular analysis in horses could hold important implications for other species, including humans. Here, we demonstrated that RTL1 is paternally expressed and is localized...
Ciani F, Maruccio L, Cocchia N, d'Angelo D, Carotenuto D, Avallone L, Namagerdi AA, Tafuri S.Assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) are widely used as a tool to improve reproductive performance in both humans and animals. In particular, in the veterinary field, ARTs are used to improve animal genetics, recover endangered animals, and produce offspring in the event of subfertility or infertility in males or females. However, the use of ARTs did not improve the fertilization rate in some animals due to various factors such as the difficulty in reproducing an anatomical and humoral substrate typical of the natural condition or due to the increase in catabolites and their difficult eli...
The approach to respiratory diseases in donkeys is similar to that for horses; nevertheless, Bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) and tracheal wash cytology in this species have been described only a few times in the literature. To describe BALF cytological findings in a cohort of 24 healthy Amiata donkeys. Bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) was carried out via standing sedation with a large animal where the BAL catheter passed blindly through the nasal passage into the trachea. The total nucleated cell count of the BALF was found similar to that already described in healthy horses and donkeys. No di...
Ramírez A CE, Hurtado-Macías A, Talamantes R, Flores E, Ladrón de Guevara HP, Delgado JI, Estrella RA, Riestra JM, Montes JM, Esmonde-White K....Guided bone regeneration surgeries are based on grafting a scaffold in the site to be repaired. The main focus of the scaffold is to provide mechanical support to newly formed blood vessels and cells that will colonize the grafted site, achiving bone regenertation. In this regards, the aim of this study was to characterize the anatomy, structular, surface morphologycal, chemical composition, and nanomechanical properties of ostrich and equine trabecular bone. Ostrich and equine specimens were obtained from a local abattoir and bone was obtained by blunt dissection, n = 5. Tissue bone anatomy...
Giannetto C, Arfuso F, Giudice E, Di Pietro S, Piccione G.Recent studies evidenced that the circadian rhythm of Per2 is involved in adaptive thermogenesis by the modulating transcription of uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1). For this purpose, we investigated the linkage between the daily rhythm of Per2 and UCP1 in ruminant and non-ruminant mammalian species. Five clinically healthy, not pregnant, and not lactating Maltese female goats and five clinically healthy, not pregnant, and not lactating Italian Saddle horses were enrolled in the study. All animals were housed under natural photoperiod (sunrise 05:05, sunset 20:55) and environmental temperature and ...
In social animals, recognizing conspecifics and distinguishing them from other animal species is certainly important. We hypothesize, as demonstrated in other species of ungulates, that horses are able to discriminate between the faces of conspecifics and the faces of other domestic species (cattle, sheep, donkeys and pigs). Our hypothesis was tested by studying inter-and intra-specific visual discrimination abilities in horses through a two-way instrumental conditioning task (discrimination and reversal learning), using two-dimensional images of faces as discriminative stimuli and food as a p...
Gómez-Torres FA, Estupiñán HY, Ruíz-Saurí A.The principal function of the ventricular conduction system is rapid electrical activation of the ventricles. The aim of this study is to conduct a morphometric study to pinpoint the morphological parameters that define cardiac conduction cells, allowing us to distinguish them from other cells. Five male horse hearts and five male dog hearts were used in the study. The hearts were fixed in a 5% formaldehyde solution. Histological sections of 5 μm thickness were acquired and stained with hematoxylin-eosin and Masson's trichrome and cardiac conduction cells and their junctions were identified ...
Yousefi-Mashouf N, Mehrabani-Yeganeh H, Nejati-Javaremi A, Bailey E, Petersen JL.The present research aimed to characterize the Persian Kurdish horse population relative to the Persian Arabian and American Thoroughbred populations using genome-wide SNP data. Fifty-eight Kurdish, 38 Persian Arabian and 83 Thoroughbred horses were genotyped across 670,796 markers. After quality control and pruning to eliminate linkage disequilibrium between loci which resulted in 13,554 SNPs in 52 Kurdish, 24 Persian Arabian and 58 Thoroughbred horses, the Kurdish horses were generally distinguished from the Persian Arabian samples by Principal Component Analyses, cluster analyses and calcul...
Spaas JH, Guest DJ, Van de Walle GR.Tendon injuries are one of the most common orthopaedic problems in both human and equine athletes. When a damaged tendon heals naturally, it loses a substantial part of the original strength and elasticity. Therefore, tendons recover structurally (reparation) but not functionally (regeneration) after conservative medical or surgical treatment. Since the structure and matrix composition of human and equine tendons share many similarities, the nature of tendon injuries are also strongly comparable in both species. Therefore, the evaluation of regenerative therapies in horses may have application...
Bauersachs S, Wolf E.Different reproductive strategies evolved in various mammalian groups to achieve recognition, establishment and maintenance of pregnancy. The complexity of these processes is reflected by a high incidence of embryonic loss during this critical period in many mammalian species. Besides studies in mice and humans a number of transcriptome studies of endometrial tissue samples and also of early embryos have been performed during the pre-implantation phase in cattle, swine and horse to identify genes associated with embryo-maternal interaction. Results of these studies are reviewed and compared be...
Yang GC, Croaker D, Zhang AL, Manglick P, Cartmill T, Cass D.Lethal white foal syndrome (LWFS) is a congenital anomaly of horses characterized by a white coat colour and aganglionosis of the bowel, which is similar to Hirschsprung disease (HSCR). We decided to investigate possible mutations of the endothelin-B receptor gene ( EDNRB ) in LWFS as recent studies in mutant rodents and some patients have demonstrated EDNRB defects. First, we identified a full-length cDNA for horse EDNRB . This cDNA fragment contained a 1329 bp open reading frame which encoded 443 amino acid residues. The predicted amino acid sequence was 89, 91 and 85% identical to human, bo...
Theoret CL, Olutoye OO, Parnell LK, Hicks J.To compare histopathologic features of a fibroproliferative disorder in horses (exuberant granulation tissue-EGT) and people (keloid). Methods: Archival tissue samples of EGT (n = 8) and keloid (12). Methods: After automated hematoxylin and eosin, histochemical (Gomori trichrome, Verhoeff-van Gieson elastin) and immunohistochemical (vimentin, α-smooth muscle actin, CD34, CD68, CD117) stainings, tissue sections were evaluated using a semi-quantitative grading scale for presence or absence of ulceration, keloidal collagen, myofibroblasts, and elastic fibers as well as degree of inflammation, fi...
Marchal R, Caillaud M, Martoriati A, Gérard N, Mermillod P, Goudet G.The aim of this study was to investigate the role of growth hormone (GH) on in vitro cumulus expansion and oocyte maturation in equine and porcine cumulus-oocyte complexes (COCs), and to approach its way of action. Equine COCs were cultured in a control medium (TCM199, 5 mg/ml BSA, 1 microg/ml estradiol, and antibiotics) supplemented with either 0.5 microg/ml equine GH or 5 microg/ml equine LH. Porcine COCs were cultured in a basal medium (TCM199 with 570 microM cysteamine) supplemented with 0, 0.1, 0.5, or 1 microg/ml porcine GH or in a control medium (basal medium with 10 ng/ml epidermal gro...
Smith JE, Mohandas N, Shohet SB.Deformability is an important aspect of erythrocyte physiology and has been extensively studied using human red cells. We have studied erythrocytes from 25 different animals using a viscometric technique. Erythrocyte diameters ranged from 3.3 microns in the goat to 11.4 microns for the elephant seal. Erythrocytes from most species deformed readily when a fluid shear stress was applied. A deformability index of the stressed cell defined as (length - width)/(length + width) correlated with cell size. The erythrocytes of four animals (pygmy goat, goat, Batanga horse, and miniature horse) deformed...
Hanafy RA, Lanjekar VB, Dhakephalkar PK, Callaghan TM, Dagar SS, Griffith GW, Elshahed MS, Youssef NH.We isolated and characterized 65 anaerobic gut fungal (AGF; Neocallimastigomycota) strains from fecal samples of five wild (W, axis deer, white-tailed deer, Boer goat, mouflon, and Nilgiri tahr), one zoo-housed (Z, zebra), and three domesticated (D, horse, sheep, and goat) herbivores in the US states of Texas (TX) and Oklahoma (OK), Wales (WA), and the Indian states of Kerala (KE) and Haryana (HA). Phylogenetic assessment using the D1-D2 regions of the large subunit (28S) rDNA and internal transcribed spacer 1 (ITS1) identified seven monophyletic clades that are distinct from all curren...
Ekman S, Carlson CS.Osteochondrosis is a disorder of epiphyseal cartilage about which there is considerable confusion in the literature. We believe that this is due to the fact that osteochondrosis has been studied in the chronic stage when the lesions are morphologically complicated and the initial causative insult is impossible to determine. The etiology of osteochondrosis appears to be multifactorial, with trauma, hereditary factors and rapid growth, nutritional factors, and ischemia all having a role in its pathogenesis. Although predilection sites are variable among species, the morphology of the early lesio...
Akerreta S, Calvo MI, Cavero RY.To collect, analyze and evaluate the ethnoveterinary knowledge about medicinal plants in a northern Iberian region (Navarra, 10,421 km(2), 620,377 inhabitants). Methods: Field work was conducted between 2003 and 2007, using semi-structured questionnaire and participant observation as well as transects walks in wild herbal plant collection areas. We performed semi-structured interviews with 667 informants (mean age 72; 55.47% women, 44.53% men) in 265 locations, identified the plant reported and analyzed the results, comparing them with those from other territories. Results: Out of 287 species ...
Salamone DF, Canel NG, Rodríguez MB.Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) has become a useful technique for clinical applications in the horse-breeding industry. However, both ICSI blastocyst and offspring production continues to be limited for most farm and wild species. This article reviews technical differences of ICSI performance among species, possible biological and methodological reasons for the variable efficiency and potential strategies to improve the outcomes. One of the major applications of ICSI in animal production is the reproduction of high-value specimens. Unfortunately, some domestic species like the bovine s...
Nergadze SG, Lupotto M, Pellanda P, Santagostino M, Vitelli V, Giulotto E.The insertion of mitochondrial DNA in the nuclear genome generates numts, nuclear sequences of mitochondrial origin. In the horse reference genome, we identified 82 numts and showed that the entire horse mitochondrial DNA is represented as numts without gross bias. Numts were inserted in the horse nuclear genome at random sites and were probably generated during the repair of DNA double-strand breaks. We then analysed 12 numt loci in 20 unrelated horses and found that null alleles, lacking the mitochondrial DNA insertion, were present at six of these loci. At some loci, the null allele is prev...
Nelson GJ.The neutral lipids of the erythrocytes were investigated in several common mammals: cow, dog, goat, horse, pig, rabbit, rat, and sheep. Cholesterol content was determined by gas-liquid, thin-layer, and column chromatography, the last in conjunction with the IR spectrophotometry. The three methods yielded similar results. In every species investigated, cholesterol was the major neutral lipid; cholesteryl esters, triglycerides, and free fatty acids were detected only in trace amounts. It is concluded that these substances may have been contaminants from plasma lipoproteins or leukocytes rather t...
Hausberger M, Fureix C, Bourjade M, Wessel-Robert S, Richard-Yris MA.Play remains a mystery and adult play even more so. More typical of young stages in healthy individuals, it occurs rarely at adult stages but then more often in captive/domestic animals, which can imply spatial, social and/or feeding deprivations or restrictions that are challenging to welfare, than in animals living in natural conditions. Here, we tested the hypothesis that adult play may reflect altered welfare states and chronic stress in horses, in which, as in several species, play rarely occurs at adult stages in natural conditions. We observed the behaviour (in particular, social play) ...
Tallmadge RL, Lear TL, Antczak DF.The availability of a contig of bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) clones spanning the equine major histocompatibility complex (MHC) made possible a detailed analysis of horse MHC class I genes. Prior to this study, only a single horse MHC class I gene had been sequenced at the genomic level. Although many ( approximately 60) MHC class I cDNA sequences had been determined and published, from this information, it was not possible to determine how many class I loci are expressed in horses or to assign individual sequences to allelic series. In this study, 15 MHC class I genes were identified ...
Heck L, Wilson LAB, Evin A, Stange M, Sánchez-Villagra MR.In horses, the morphological changes induced by the process of domestication are reportedly less pronounced than in other species, such as dogs or pigs - although the horses' disparity has rarely been empirically tested. We investigated shape differences and modularity of domesticated horses, Przewalski's horses, donkeys and zebras. Mandibular and tooth shape have been shown to be valuable features for differentiating wild and domesticated forms in some mammals. Results: Both mandible and teeth, show a pattern of shape space occupation analogous to that of the cranium, with domesticated horses...
Lagutina I, Lazzari G, Duchi R, Turini P, Tessaro I, Brunetti D, Colleoni S, Crotti G, Galli C.Nuclear transfer (NT) is a complex procedure that requires considerable technical skills. Over the years attempts have been made to simplify the micromanipulations involved and to make the procedure more user-friendly. A significant step forwards has been the development of the zona-free NT methods. We have used zona-free NT with mechanical aspiration of the metaphase plate as a mean of enucleation, in a comparative approach with the conventional nuclear transfer zona-enclosed method in cattle, horse, sheep and pig. The absence of the zona considerably facilitates the enucleation step and sign...
Khanshour AM, Cothran EG.Maternal inheritance is an essential point in Arabian horse population genetics and strains classification. The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequencing is a highly informative tool to investigate maternal lineages. We sequenced the whole mtDNA D-loop of 251 Arabian horses to study the genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationships of Arabian populations and to examine the traditional strain classification system that depends on maternal family lines using native Arabian horses from the Middle East. Results: The variability in the upstream region of the D-loop revealed additional differences amo...
Nathan H, Gloobe H.The myocardial fibres of the posterior wall of the atrio-venous junctions were examined in 35 large domestic mammals. In the majority of specimens a common pattern in the course and organization of the fibres could be observed. The most obvious features were the following: (1) a main circular fascicle surrounding the pulmonary trunks; (2) fibres encircling the atriovenous junctions; and (3) myocardial sleeves extending along the veins, occasionally as far as the lung. The superior part of the left atrial wall was consistently thicker than the inferior section. Individual variations of this wal...
Goodwin S.Body temperature of goats, horses, and sheep was measured, using 3 methods. Tympanic temperature was measured with a tympanic infrared thermometer, subcutaneous temperature was measured with an implantable microchip transponder, and rectal temperature was measured with a digital thermometer. For goats, rectal and subcutaneous temperatures were significantly higher than tympanic temperatures, but rectal and subcutaneous temperatures did not differ significantly. For horses and sheep, rectal temperatures were significantly higher than tympanic and subcutaneous temperatures, and tympanic temperat...
Warmuth V, Eriksson A, Bower MA, Cañon J, Cothran G, Distl O, Glowatzki-Mullis ML, Hunt H, Luís C, do Mar Oom M, Yupanqui IT, Ząbek T, Manica A.The role of European wild horses in horse domestication is poorly understood. While the fossil record for wild horses in Europe prior to horse domestication is scarce, there have been suggestions that wild populations from various European regions might have contributed to the gene pool of domestic horses. To distinguish between regions where domestic populations are mainly descended from local wild stock and those where horses were largely imported, we investigated patterns of genetic diversity in 24 European horse breeds typed at 12 microsatellite loci. The distribution of high levels of gen...
Nishimoto KP, Laust AK, Wang K, Kamrud KI, Hubby B, Smith JF, Nelson EL.Dendritic cells (DCs) consist of heterogeneous phenotypic populations and have diverse immunostimulatory functions dependent on both lineage and functional phenotype, but as exceptionally potent antigen-presenting cells, they are targets for generating effective antigen-specific immune responses. A promising replicon particle vector derived from Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEE) has been reported to transduce murine footpad DCs. However, the receptive DC subset, the degree of restriction for this tropism, and the extent of conservation between rodents and humans have not been well cha...
Piras FM, Nergadze SG, Poletto V, Cerutti F, Ryder OA, Leeb T, Raimondi E, Giulotto E.Horses, asses and zebras belong to the genus Equus and are the only extant species of the family Equidae in the order Perissodactyla. In a previous work we demonstrated that a key factor in the rapid karyotypic evolution of this genus was evolutionary centromere repositioning, that is, the shift of the centromeric function to a new position without alteration of the order of markers along the chromosome. In search of previously undiscovered evolutionarily new centromeres, we traced the phylogeny of horse chromosome 5, analyzing the order of BAC markers, derived from a horse genomic library, in...
Skedros JG, Su SC, Bloebaum RD.Artiodactyl and perissodactyl calcanei have been recently introduced as models for examining bone for mechanically mediated adaptation. We have reported substantial regional variations in cortical bone microstructure and mineral content within the same cross-section of mule deer calcanei. In part, these variations may be adaptations accommodating the customary presence of predominantly tension, compression, and shear strain modes in mutually exclusive cortical locations. Calcanei from skeletally mature horses, elk, and sheep were examined in order to corroborate these previous findings. From e...
Chevrier A, Kouao AS, Picard G, Hurtig MB, Buschmann MD.Microfracture repair tissue in young adult humans and in rabbit trochlea is frequently of higher quality than in corresponding ovine or horse models or in the rabbit medial femoral condyle (MFC). This may be related to differences in subchondral properties since repair is initiated from the bone. We tested the hypothesis that subchondral bone from rabbit trochlea and the human MFC are structurally similar. Trochlea and MFC samples from rabbit, sheep, and horse were micro-CT scanned and histoprocessed. Samples were also collected from normal and lesional areas of human MFC. The subchondral bone...
Young R, Taylor JE, Kurioka A, Becker M, Louis EJ, Rudenko G.African trypanosomes (including Trypanosoma brucei) are unicellular parasites which multiply in the mammalian bloodstream. T. brucei has about twenty telomeric bloodstream form Variant Surface Glycoprotein (VSG) expression sites (BESs), of which one is expressed at a time in a mutually exclusive fashion. BESs are polycistronic transcription units, containing a variety of families of expression site associated genes (ESAGs) in addition to the telomeric VSG. These polymorphic ESAG families are thought to play a role in parasite-host adaptation, and it has been proposed that ESAG diversity might ...
Steiner CC, Ryder OA.Prdm9 (Meisetz) is the first speciation gene discovered in vertebrates conferring reproductive isolation. This locus encodes a meiosis-specific histone H3 methyltransferase that specifies meiotic recombination hotspots during gametogenesis. Allelic differences in Prdm9, characterized for a variable number of zinc finger (ZF) domains, have been associated with hybrid sterility in male house mice via spermatogenic failure at the pachytene stage. The mule, a classic example of hybrid sterility in mammals also exhibits a similar spermatogenesis breakdown, making Prdm9 an interesting candidate to e...
Hung GC, Chilton NB, Beveridge I, Gasser RB.In this study, molecular data sets were used to address the controversies relating to the systematics of strongyloid nematodes of equids utilising morphological data sets. DNA sequences of the first and second internal transcribed spacers (ITS-1 and ITS-2) of ribosomal DNA were determined for 30 species of equine strongyles and the systematic relationships reconstructed using phenetic and phylogenetic tree-building methods. The molecular data provided support for the hypothesis that the genera with large subglobular buccal capsules are ancestral to those with small cylindrical buccal capsules,...
Lira J, Linderholm A, Olaria C, Brandström Durling M, Gilbert MT, Ellegren H, Willerslev E, Lidén K, Arsuaga JL, Götherström A.Multiple geographical regions have been proposed for the domestication of Equus caballus. It has been suggested, based on zooarchaeological and genetic analyses that wild horses from the Iberian Peninsula were involved in the process, and the overrepresentation of mitochondrial D1 cluster in modern Iberian horses supports this suggestion. To test this hypothesis, we analysed mitochondrial DNA from 22 ancient Iberian horse remains belonging to the Neolithic, the Bronze Age and the Middle Ages, against previously published sequences. Only the medieval Iberian sequence appeared in the D1 group. N...
