The present study sought to evaluate mRNA expression profiles in the cultured dermal fibroblasts of Tharparkar (zebu) and Karan-Fries (zebu, Tharparkar × taurine, Holstein Friesian) cattle in response to heat stress. Bioinformatics’ analysis identified temperature-regulated biological processes and pathways. Biological processes overrepresented among the earliest genes induced by temperature stress include regulation of stress responses, protein repair, metabolism, protein transport, cell division, and apoptosis. The present microarray platform contains 51,338 synthesized oligonucleotide probes corresponding to at least 36,713 unigenes. A total of 11,183 and 8126 transcripts were differentially expressed with a fold change of ≥ 2 in Tharparkar and Karan-Fries cattle, respectively. Randomly selected real-time validation showed 83.33% correlation with microarray data. Functional annotation and pathway study of the differentially expressed transcripts or genes (DEGs) reveal that upregulated genes significantly (P < 0.05) affect protein processing and NOD-like receptor pathways (NLRs), while downregulated genes were significantly (P < 0.05) found to be associated with cell cycle, metabolism, and protein transport. Gene expression changes include activation of heat shock factors (HSFs), increased expression of heat shock proteins (HSPs), and apoptosis, while decreasing protein synthesis and another metabolism. These findings provide insights into the underlying mechanism of the physiology of heat stress in Tharparkar and Karan-Fries cattle. Understanding the biology and mechanisms of heat stress is critical to developing approaches to ameliorate current production issues for improving animal performance and agriculture economics in tropical climatic conditions. In conclusion, the present study indicates that heat stress differentially affects the expression of the significant number of genes associated with stress response, metabolism, apoptosis, and protein transport in dermal fibroblasts of Tharparkar and Karan-Fries cattle.

Twenty four lactating buffaloes were selected and divided equally into four groups viz. Group I (control), Group II (astaxanthin @ 0.25 mg/kg body wt/day), Group III (prill fat @ 100g/animal/day) and Group IV (astaxanthin + prill fat) for monitoring the effect of supplementation on stress markers, milk yield and composition. Rectal temperature was lower in treatment groups compared to control. Plasma cortisol levels were lower (P < 0.05) in treatment Groups (II and IV) than control. Milk yield was higher (P < 0.05) in treatment groups, whereas the magnitude of increase was highest in Group IV (15.6%) followed by Group III (13.8%) and Group I (5.39%) over control. Fat percent was higher (P < 0.05) in Group III compared to control. Present study indicated that the energy levels were maintained by prill fat supplementation during heat stress. The combination of astaxanthin and prill fat showed beneficial effect over prill fat supplementation i.e. better health status in addition to higher milk yield, but higher cost of astaxanthin reduced the cost benefit ratio in combination group (1:2.58) than prill fat supplementation (1:6.75) group. As the farmers are interested in immediate benefit, supplementation of prill fat can be recommended for enhancing/sustaining milk production in buffaloes under tropical climatic conditions.

The better adaptation and mitigation options can help to curtail the effects of climate change on livestock performance. To reduce poverty and promote sustainable development through livestock production, favorable policies and action-oriented research are urgently required to address the pertinent issue. For effective adaptation and mitigation measures to address climate change and livestock production, these measures should be scaled up through policy. For example, understanding farmers’ perceptions and including them in policy development can improve food security and environmental conservation by promoting widespread practice adoption. In addition, a comprehensive view of costs, time, and effort required from the producer need to be included to the policy framework to maintain sustainable and resilient production systems.