Oestrus synchronization with fixed-time artificial insemination in smallholder pig production systems in north-east India: Success rate and benefits

Pig production is an important component of the farming systems that are practised in the north-eastern region of India and it has special significance for improving the socio-economic status of tribal farmers in the region. In an effort to optimize the production efficiency of rural pig production systems, the potential influence of oestrus synchronization and fixed-time artificial insemination (AI) on synchronizing husbandry programmes was investigated. A total of 117 crossbred sows, selected from various village production units, were randomly allocated to two (control and treatment) groups. The sows in the treatment group (n = 81) received 800 IU of equine chorionic gonadotropin (eCG), followed by 500 IU of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) 72 hours after the eCG injection. The sows in the control group (n = 36) served as the untreated control. The onset of oestrus, oestrus signs, oestrus intensity, and duration of oestrus were observed after treatment. The oestrus sows were inseminated twice at 24 h and 36 h, respectively, after hCG injection at various village production units. Results revealed that 86.4% of sows in the treatment group exhibited all the behavioural and physical signs of oestrus. The average interval between treatment and onset of oestrus was 84.8 ± 2.43 hours. The mean oestrus intensity of sows in the treatment group was 2.3 (when assessed on a scale of 1 to 3), which did not differ significantly from the oestrus intensity exhibited by the control group. The duration of oestrus varied from 36 to 56 hours in the treated sows, which was significantly longer when compared with the duration of oestrus in the control group. The study obtained a farrowing rate of 82.6% and litter size of 9.2 ± 0.32 after oestrus synchronization with timed insemination. Oestrus synchronization facilitated the insemination of a batch of sows at particular locations covering two to three village clusters, which drastically reduced the transport costs for the semen. Oestrus synchronization facilitated the effective implementation of AI by coordinating the insemination of batches of sows, thus reducing shipping and insemination costs. Improving heat detection contributed to shortening the weaning to oestrous interval in smallholder pig production system, which in turn decreased production costs.______________________________________________________________________________________Keywords: Assisted reproduction, farrrowing rate, insemination cost, reproduction efficienc

EFFECT OF GENETIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS ON SEX RATIO IN CROSSBRED PIGS

The study was initiated with an idea to investigate few genetic and environmental factors that affect sex ratio of Khasi local and their different crossbreds with Hampshire pigs. Individual data were collected of pure Khasi local and its crossbred with 50, 75 and 87.5 % Hampshire inheritance in different seasons like rainy (July to October), summer (March-June) and winter (Nov- Feb). The sex ratio for Khasi local crossbred with 50, 75 and 87.5 % Hampshire inheritance was 1.21 ± 0.16, 1.32 ± 0.16, 1.48 ± 0.16 an 1.32 ± 0.16 respectively with an overall mean sex ratio 1.38 ± 0.16, whereas, the sex ratio for spring, rainy and winter season was 1.31 ± 0.17, 1.29 ± 0.16 and 1.32 ± 0.15, respectively. Similarly, the sex ratio for larger litters and smaller litters was 1.40 ± 0.13 and 1.45 ± 0.13 respectively. This study concludes that crossbreds at different levels of inheritance, season and litter size had no effect on sex ratio

HAEMOGRAM OF KHASI LOCAL (MEGHALAYA LOCAL) PIG AT DIFFERENT AGE

The blood of Meghalaya Local pigs of different ages i.e. 0 day, 15 days, 1 month, 2 months, 4 months and 6 months) were collected and studied various cytological parameters like Hb. (g.percent), TEC (million/cmm), PVC (percent), ESR (mm/hr.), TLC (thousand/cmm), Neutrophil (percent), Eosinophil (percent) and Lymphocyte (percent). Newborn piglets showed an average Hb% of 6.9 ± 0.17, RBC counts of 3.81± 0.39 million/cmm of blood and which increased with the advancement of age. PVC% was found to be lowest in newborn piglets 18.3 ± 0.69 and highest in 6 months age 45.5 ± 0.51. Neutrophil count was significantly higher in newborn piglets 52.67 ± 1.35 and basophil was also observed to be present in the age group of 1 month, 2 months, and 6 months

Mitigation of Attacks via Improved Network Security in IoT Network using Machine Learning

In this paper, we develop a support vector machine (SVM) based attack mitigation technique from the IoT network. The SVM aims to classify the features related to the attacks based on pre-processed and feature extracted information. The simulation is conducted in terms of accuracy, precision, recall and f-measure over KDD datasets. The results show that the proposed SVM classifier obtains high grade of classification accuracy in both training and testing datasets

EFFECT OF PMSG FOLLOWED BY HCG ON ESTRUS SYNCHRONIZATION IN WEANED SOWS

A total of 60 crossbred sows (Hampshire X Khasi Local) were selected a week after weaning and divided into two groups (30 in each). The sows in group-I were injected with 800 IU of PMSG followed by 400 IU of HCG 56 hours after PMSG. In Group-II served as untreated / control. Natural service was given to all estrus sows after 96 hours of hormonal treatment. It was noticed that 90 % of sow exhibited all the sign of estrus after 96 hours and 75 % of sows were sexually receptive to boar. The average interval between treatments to onset of estrus was 87.74 ± 10.72 hours. The duration of estrus varied from 40 to 56 hours with an average of 42.2 ± 3.24 hours in treatment group. Whereas, in control group it ranged from 27 to 52 hours with an average of 36.78 ± 4.12 hours. The furrowing rate was 88 and 90.9 % respectively in treated and control group, while the litter size was 10.37 ± 0.57 and 9.15 +0.34 and number of live born per litter was 9.24 ± 0.43 and 8.78 ± 0.27 respectively. Present finding suggested that it is possible to induce and synchronize fertile estrus with PMSG followed by HCG in weaned sows. The study also suggested that estrus synchronization followed by synchronized furrowing might be practiced to reduced pre-weaning piglet mortality during winter

A caspase-3 'death-switch' in colorectal cancer cells for induced and synchronous tumor apoptosis in vitro and in vivo facilitates the development of minimally invasive cell death biomarkers

Novel anticancer drugs targeting key apoptosis regulators have been developed and are undergoing clinical trials. Pharmacodynamic biomarkers to define the optimum dose of drug that provokes tumor apoptosis are in demand; acquisition of longitudinal tumor biopsies is a significant challenge and minimally invasive biomarkers are required. Considering this, we have developed and validated a preclinical 'death-switch' model for the discovery of secreted biomarkers of tumour apoptosis using in vitro proteomics and in vivo evaluation of the novel imaging probe [ 18 F]ML-10 for non-invasive detection of apoptosis using positron emission tomography (PET). The 'death-switch' is a constitutively active mutant caspase-3 that is robustly induced by doxycycline to drive synchronous apoptosis in human colorectal cancer cells in vitro or grown as tumor xenografts. Deathswitch induction caused caspase-dependent apoptosis between 3 and 24 hours in vitro and regression of 'death-switched' xenografts occurred within 24 h correlating with the percentage of apoptotic cells in tumor and levels of an established cell death biomarker (cleaved cytokeratin-18) in the blood. We sought to define secreted biomarkers of tumor apoptosis from cultured cells using Discovery Isobaric Tag proteomics, which may provide candidates to validate in blood. Early after caspase-3 activation, levels of normally secreted proteins were decreased (e.g. Gelsolin and Midkine) and proteins including CD44 and High Mobility Group protein B1 (HMGB1) that were released into cell culture media in vitro were also identified in the bloodstream of mice bearing death-switched tumors. We also exemplify the utility of the death-switch model for the validation of apoptotic imaging probes using [ 18 F]ML-10, a PET tracer currently in clinical trials. Results showed increased tracer uptake of [ 18 F]ML-10 in tumours undergoing apoptosis, compared with matched tumour controls imaged in the same animal. Overall, the death-switch model represents a robust and versatile tool for the discovery and validation of apoptosis biomarkers. © 2013 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved

Porcine ovarian biometry, oocyte retrieval and quality of oocytes under different seasons in north east hill region

The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of different seasons on porcine ovarian biometry and centred, oocyte retrieval and quality of oocytes in north east hill region of India. Porcine ovaries (1886) were collected over a period of 12 months from local abattoirs. The morphological studies revealed mulberry shaped multi- lobulated ovaries with an average weight of 4.435 ± 0.622 The average number of GF and CL were significantly higher in winter than monsoon) but not significantly different from pre-monsoon/summer. The number of CA was significantly higher in winter than monsoon and summer. The number of recovered oocyte from the visible follicles in oocyte collection medium had significantly higher number in winter than other two seasons. The oocyte percentage of grade-I, grade-II, grade-III and grade-IV were found to be 24, 36, 23 and 17%, respectively. The culturable oocytes were significantly higher during winter than summer and monsoon seasons. The season had significant effect on quality and quantity of porcine ovaries which could be well utilized in-vitro maturation and fertilization by the research in field of reproduction and biotechnology

Effect of Presuperovulatory Treatment of Buserelin on Superovulatory Response and Embryo Recovery in Cattle under Subtropical Conditions of Meghalaya

ABSTRACT An experiment was conducted with 24 healthy cyclic cows between 2 nd to 5 th lactation by under intensive system of rearing. The animals were randomly divided into Control (C) and Experiment (E) groups with 12 animals in each The control and experiment groups were again further subdivided in groups C 1 and C 2 & E 1 and E 2 comprising six in each. Onset of oestrus was considered as day 0 for superovulatory treatment. The animals of groups C 1 and C 2 & E 1 and E 2 were injected with 5 ml NSS (i/ml) & 21μg GnRH (i/m) (Buserelin acetate) on day 8 of the oestrous cycle, respectively. Each of the experimental animals of groups C 1 and E 1 was superovulated with 400 mg FSH (i/m) in divided and equal doses at 12 h intervals for four days on day 10 to 13 of the oestrous cycle and consequently, each of the experimental animals of groups C 2 and E 2 was also superovulated with 2000 I.U.PMSG injection (i/m) as single dose on day 10 of the oestrous cycle. PGF 2 α 2ml was injected (i/m) at morning time on day 12 of oestrous cycle. At the superovulatory oestrus, all the animals were bred three times at 12 h intervals using frozen semen. The animals were examined per rectally on day 6 of the induced oestrus after first insemination to detect the superovulatory response. Flushing was performed on day 7 of induced oestrus to retrieve embryos from the superovulated cows. In the present experiment, superovulatory response in GnRH treated groups of cows (groups E 1 and E 2 ) were found to be better as compared to that of the animals of control groups but the duration of induced oestrus (h) recorded in groups C 2 (49.02 ± 0.07 h) and E 2 (50.40 ± 0.27 h) were found to be significantly higher (P<0.05) than the value recorded in groups C 1 and E 1

Synthesis of green zinc‐oxide nanoparticles and its dose‐dependent beneficial effect on spermatozoa during preservation: sperm functional integrity, fertility and antimicrobial activity

Introduction: The development of an effective extender is important for semen preservation and the artificial insemination (AI) industry. This study demonstrates the beneficial effect of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) as an additive to semen extenders to improve semen quality, fertility, and antibacterial activity during liquid preservation in a boar model.Methods: Initially, to find out the safe concentration of ZnO-NPs in sperm cells, a wide range of ZnO-NP concentrations (0, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500, and 1,000 μM) were co-incubated with sperm at 37°C for a cytotoxic study. These NP concentrations were compared to their salt control zinc acetate (ZA) at the same concentrations and to a control group. The effect of the different concentrations of ZnO-NPs on sperm motility, membrane integrity, mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP), and apoptosis was assessed. Accordingly, the non-toxic dose was selected and supplemented in MODENA extender to determine its beneficial effect on the boar semen parameters mentioned and the lipid peroxidation (LPO) levels during liquid preservation at 16°C for 6 days. The non-cytotoxic dosage was subsequently chosen for AI, fertility investigations, and the evaluation of the antibacterial efficacy of ZnO-NPs during preservation hours. An antibacterial study of ZnO-NPs and its salt control at doses of 10 μM and 50 μM was carried out by the colony forming unit (CFU) method.Results and discussion: The cytotoxic study revealed that 5, 10, and 50 μM of ZnO-NPs are safe. Consequently, semen preserved in the MODENA extender, incorporating the non-toxic dose, exhibited 10 and 50 μM ZnO-NPs as the optimal concentrations for beneficial outcomes during liquid preservation at 16°C. ZnO-NPs of 10 μM concentration resulted in a significantly (p < 0.05) improved conception rate of 86.95% compared to the control of 73.13%. ZnO-NPs of 10 and 50 μM concentrations exhibit potent antimicrobial action by reducing the number of colonies formed with days of preservation in comparison to the negative control. The investigation concluded that the incorporation of 10 μM ZnO-NPs led to enhancements in sperm motility, membrane integrity, and MMP, attributed to a reduction in the malondialdehyde (MDA) levels. This improvement was accompanied by a concurrent increase in fertility rates, including farrowing rate and litter size, during the liquid preservation process. Furthermore, ZnO-NPs exhibited an antimicrobial effect, resulting in decreased bacterial growth while preserving boar semen at 16°C for 6 days. These findings suggest that ZnO-NPs could serve as a viable alternative to antibiotics, potentially mitigating antibiotic resistance concerns within the food chain