Foot and Mouth disease (FMD) is a contagious disease leads to economically loss in livestock production all over the world. This serious disease is caused due to the infection of the animal with a single-stranded RNA virus (FMDV). This study aimed to investigate the genetic polymorphism of BoLA-DRB3 gene in Egyptian buffalo as a candidate genetic marker included in multi-factorial process of FMD resistance/susceptibility. Also this work aimed to genetically characterization and serotyping of circulating FMD virus in Egypt during 2016. For serotyping of FMDV, RT-PCR was used for FMDV-positive samples and the results declared the presence of serotype O in all tested animals. The sequence analysis of FMDV samples revealed five different patterns for the detected serotype O which were submitted to GenBank under the accession Nos.: MG017361-MG017365. The 302-bp amplified fragments from BoLA-DRB3 exon 2 were digested with HaeIII endonuclease and the results showed that the presence of five BoLA-DRB3 genotypes, among them the genotype AA might be associated with FMD-resistance (P < 0.01). On the other hand, genotype AC could be correlated with susceptibility (P < 0.01) to FMD in Egyptian buffaloes where it was absent in resistant group. The five detected genotypes of BoLA-DRB3 exon 2 were submitted to GenBank with the accession Nos.: MF977316-MF977320. In conclusion, our findings suggested that the detection of different BoLA-DRB3 genotypes may be has a promising role for raising the resistance of Egyptian buffalo against FMDV especially serotype O which is prevalent in Egypt with preferring genotype AA.

A 721-bp fragment from 15,541 to 16,261 bp (NC_001941.1) of the mtDNA control region from different Egyptian and Italian sheep breeds was amplified. The PCR products were purified and sequenced. From the amplified fragment of 721-bp, a region of 423 bp after excluding a central region rich in tandem repeats was analyzed. Within all tested breeds, the haplotype diversity and average number of pairwise differences were 0.97571 and 7.01484, respectively. The genetic distances (D) and the average number of pairwise differences (Dxy) between breeds were estimated. The lowest distance was observed between Laticauda and Italian Muflon followed by distance between Sarda and Italian Muflon while the highest distance was observed between Barki and Sarda followed by distance between Barki and Laticauda. Phylogenetic analysis showed the presence of three haplogroups - HapA, HapB and HapC - in the examined samples with the absence of other two haplogroups HapD and HapE. All Italian samples cluster with B haplogroup and also in the Egyptian breeds the most dominant haplogroup was B (62 out of 67 analyzed samples). In Egyptian Barki breed one individual clusters with A haplogroup and another individual with C haplogroup. In Ossimi breed two individuals cluster with C haplogroup and in Rahmani there is one sample belonging to A haplogroup. The matrix of pairwise differences among breeds was used to perform a Principal Component Analysis (PCA). This analysis showed that the Italian breeds are clearly separated from the Egyptian breeds; moreover the Egyptian Barki breed is separated from Ossimi and Rahmani.

This study was aimed to assess cytochrome b conservation in six breeds of camels reared in Egypt and to compare its sequence with those of other livestock species. The 208-bp fragments from camel mtDNA cyto b were amplified using PCR for 54 camels belonging to 6 camel breeds reared in Egypt. The alignment of camel cyto b sequences showed the presence of two polymorphic sites resulting in four haplotypes and their nucleotide sequences were submitted to GenBank under the accession numbers: KX909894-KX909897. The genetic distances between tested camel breeds were zero between Baladi, Fallahi and Maghrabi breeds whereas they were at low value between the other three breeds: Mowaled, Sodany and Somali. Neighbor-joining showed 4 branches; one of them include most of the tested animals and another one contains 2 Somali animals which is considered a specific haplotype for this breed. The other two branches are mixed between Sodani and Mowaled breeds. Neighbor-joining tree was constructed between cyto b sequences of our tested camels and their sequences from livestock species include Camelus dromedaries, Camelus bactrianus, Ovis aries, Capra hircus, Bubalus bubalis, Bos Taurus and Sus scrofa. The result confirmed that our camel breeds belong to Camelus dromedaries and are clearly separated from other species. It is concluded that cyto b sequence is highly conserved among all camel breeds reared in Egypt which belong to Camelus dromedaries in addition to the advantage of cyto b in differentiation between different livestock sources which enables it to widely use for the adulteration detection in mixed meat.

In dairy farm animals, the principal goal of the selection is the improvement of milk yield and composition. The genes of milk proteins and hormones are excellent candidate genes for linkage analysis with quantitative trait loci (QTL) because of their biological significance on the quantitative traits of interest.Prolactin (PRL) is a polypeptide hormone with multiple functions, secreted mainly by the anterior pituitary gland. Prolactin’s biological activity consists of various roles in the reproduction, lactation and a number of homeostatic biological functions including immune functions.Casein proteins and their genetic variants have been reported as important factors associated with lactation performance, milk composition and cheese yield efficiency. Genetic variants of bovine kappa-casein (K-CN) gene are associated with milk protein content and have a significant influence on rennet clotting time, firmness and cheese yield of milk.The pituitary-specific transcription factor (PIT-1) gene is responsible for pituitary development and hormone secreting gene expression in mammals. PIT-1 is studied as a candidate genetic marker for growth, carcass and also for milk yield traits.Genomic DNA extracted from 100 healthy buffaloes was amplified using primers that were designed from the cattle PRL, K-CN and PIT-1 gene sequences. The amplified fragments of PRL (294-bp), K-CN (530-bp) and PIT-1 (451-bp) were digested with RsaI, HindIII and HinfI restriction enzymes, respectively. The results showed that all tested buffaloes are genotyped as GG for PRL, BB for K-CN and BB for PIT-1