The buffalo was domesticated around 3000–6000 years ago and has substantial economic significance as a meat, dairy, and draught animal. The buffalo has remained underutilized in terms of the development of a well-annotated and assembled reference genome de novo. It is mandatory to explore the genetic architecture of a species to understand the biology that helps to manage its genetic variability, which is ultimately used for selective breeding and genomic selection. Morphological and molecular data have revealed that the swamp buffalo population has strong geographical genomic diversity with low gene flow but strong phenotypic consistency, while the river buffalo population has higher phenotypic diversity with a weak phylogeographic structure. The availability of recent high-quality reference genome and genotyping marker panels has invigorated many genome-based studies on evolutionary history, genetic diversity, functional elements, and performance traits. The increasing molecular knowledge syndicate with selective breeding should pave the way for genetic improvement in the climatic resilience, disease resistance, and production performance of water buffalo populations globally.

Rotavirus is the leading cause of severe dehydrating diarrhea in young children and the inner capsid protein VP6 is a potential vaccine candidate that can induce cross-protective immune responses against different Rotavirus strains. The use of ferritin nanoparticles as the scaffold of the antigen can improve the immunogenicity of the subunit vaccines and provide broader protection. We here present a non-live and self-assemble recombinant rotavirus VP6–ferritin (rVP6–ferritin) nanoparticle vaccine. The rVP6–ferritin nanoparticles were expressed in E. coli and self-assembled to uniform spherical structure which similar to ferritin, and oral administration of them induced efficient humoral and mucosal immunogenicity in mice. The nanoparticles were further transgenically expressed in the milk of mice, and pup mice breastfed by transgenic rVP6–ferritin mothers had strongly induced immunogenicity and—compared to pups breastfed by wild type mothers—the proportion of rotavirus challenged pups with diarrhea symptoms, the duration and intensity of the diarrhea, and the deleterious effects on overall growth resulting from the diarrhea were all significantly reduced. These results suggest that this recombinant VP6–ferritin nanoparticle vaccine can efficiently prevent the death and malnutrition induced by the rotavirus infection in infants and is a promising candidate vaccine for rotavirus.

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) are the nuclear receptors that could mediate the nutrient-dependent transcriptional activation and regulate metabolic networks through energy homeostasis. However, these receptors cannot work properly under metabolic stress. PPARs and their subtypes can be modulated by nutrigenomic interventions, particularly under stress conditions to restore cellular homeostasis. Many nutrients such as polyunsaturated fatty acids, vitamins, dietary amino acids and phytochemicals have shown their ability for potential activation or inhibition of PPARs. Thus, through different mechanisms, all these nutrients can modulate PPARs and are ultimately helpful to prevent various metabolic disorders, particularly in transition dairy cows. This review aims to provide insights into the crucial role of PPARs in energy metabolism and their potential modulation through nutrigenomic interventions to improve energy homeostasis in dairy animals.

Background: Buffalo milk is considered as a highly nutritious food owing to its higher contents of fatty acids (FA) and rich nutrient profile. Higher fat contents of buffalo milk make it suitable for processing to develop various healthy and nutritious products. Moreover, buffalo milk contains more unsaturated FAs (UFA) such as oleic and linolenic acid, which are important from the human health point of view owing to their desirable physiological effects. However, inadequate information is available about the chemical composition and mechanism of FA synthesis in buffalo milk. In this study, we hypothesized that expression of SCD1 gene could alter the biosynthesis of FA in epithelial cells of mammary gland and subsequently affect the FA contents in buffalo milk. We investigated the transcriptional and biological role of Stearoyl-CoA Desaturase 1 (SCD1) in the buffalo mammary epithelial cells (BMECs) during FA and triacylglycerol (TAG) synthesis. Results: Results revealed that unsaturated fatty acid contents were much higher in concentration in buffalo milk as compared to Holstein cow. Significant increase in the expression level of FAS, ACACA, SREBP1, PPARG, GPAT, and AGPAT genes was observed in response to altered expression of SCD1 in buffalo milk. Moreover, change in SCD1 gene in BMECs also mediated the expression of genes related to FA biosynthesis subsequently leading to alter the FA composition. Overexpression of SCD1 significantly increased the expression of genes associated with FA and TAG synthesis leading to enhance FA and unsaturated FA contents in BMECs. However, down-regulation of SCD1 exhibited opposite consequences. Conclusion: Our study provides mechanistic insights on transcriptional regulation of SCD1 to alter FA and TAG synthesis through directly or indirectly mediating biosynthesis and metabolic pathways in BMECs. We provide preliminary findings regarding engineering of FA contents in buffalo milk through SCD1 signaling.

Consumers have shown more and more interest in high-quality and healthy dairy products and buffalo milk is commercially more viable than other milks in producing superior dairy products due to its higher contents of fat, crude protein, and total solids. Metabolomics is one of the most powerful strategies in molecular mechanism research however, little study has been focused on the milk metabolites in different buffalo species. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore the underlying molecular mechanism of the fatty synthesis and candidate biomarkers by analyzing the metabolomic profiles. Milk of three groups of buffaloes, including 10 Mediterranean, 12 Murrah, and 10 crossbred buffaloes (Murrah × local swamp buffalo), were collected and UPLC-Q-Orbitrap HRMS was used to obtain the metabolomic profiles. Results showed that milk fatty acid in Mediterranean buffalo was significantly higher than Murrah buffalo and crossbred buffalo. A total of 1837/726 metabolites was identified in both positive and negative electrospray ionization (ESI±) mode, including 19 significantly different metabolites between Mediterranean and Murrah buffalo, and 18 different metabolites between Mediterranean and crossbred buffalo. We found 11 of the different metabolites were both significantly different between Mediterranean vs. Murrah group and Mediterranean vs crossbred group, indicating that they can be used as candidate biomarkers of Mediterranean buffalo milk. Further analysis found that the different metabolites were mainly enriched in fat synthesis related pathways such as fatty acid biosynthesis, unsaturated fatty acid biosynthesis, and linoleic acid metabolism, indicating that the priority of different pathways affected the milk fat content in different buffalo species. These specific metabolites may be used as biomarkers in the identification of milk quality and molecular breeding of high milk fat buffalo.

Leeches have been used in traditional Chinese medicine since prehistoric times to treat a spectrum of ailments, but very little is known about their physiological, genetic, and evolutionary characteristics. We sequenced and assembled chromosome-level genomes of 3 leech species (bloodsucking Hirudo nipponia and Hirudinaria manillensis and nonbloodsucking Whitmania pigra). The dynamic population histories and genome-wide expression patterns of the 2 bloodsucking leech species were found to be similar. A combined analysis of the genomic and transcriptional data revealed that the bloodsucking leeches have a presumably enhanced auditory sense for prey location in relatively deep fresh water. The copy number of genes related to anticoagulation, analgesia, and anti-inflammation increased in the bloodsucking leeches, and their gene expressions responded dynamically to the bloodsucking process. Furthermore, the expanded FBN1 gene family may help in rapid body swelling of leeches after bloodsucking, and the expanded GLB3 gene family may be associated with long-term storage of prey blood in a leech's body. The high-quality reference genomes and comprehensive datasets obtained in this study may facilitate innovations in the artificial culture and strain optimization of leeches.