Disturbed Ovarian Differentiation in XX;SRY-Negative Dogs

In a mammal, at the beginning of its development, the gonad is bipotential. The shift into a male or female pathway is coordinated by the sex chromosomal complement, which triggers a series of genetic pathways signaling the developmental pattern of the gonadal anlage. Being mutually exclusive, the differentiated gonad should be either a testis or an ovary. In females, the absence of SRY, a testis-determining gene, drives the signaling cascades controlling the ovarian differentiation. Albeit rare, disorders of the gonadal differentiation may occur in men and domestic animals and may cause infertility or sterility. In dogs, the XX;SRY-negative disorder of sexual development (DSD) is the most frequent condition. The disorder typically presents a wide spectrum of developmental conditions of the gonad and variable virilization of the genital phenotype, that may be accompanied by hypospadias. This condition may be inherited as a sex–limited autosomal recessive trait; however, the mechanism explaining its occurrence remains poorly understood. This review intends to present an overview of the morphologic features of XX;SRY-negative syndrome in dogs, while addressing the current knowledge regarding the genetic mechanism underlying this condition

Pursuing Alternative Strategies for Healthier Medical Contraception in Dogs

Although extensively used in the control of the reproductive cycles in either the domestic or feral dogs as well as in wild carnivores, medical progestin-based contraception still raises concerns to the veterinary practitioner and owners on its safety and efficiency. These concerns endorsed, in last decades, the research in the development of new alternatives for effective, reversible, and safe contraceptive methods for carnivores, mainly pursuing a larger-scale control of canine reproduction and the development of products with few side effects. Nowadays, the medical contraceptives often intend to master, in a reversible way, the reproductive cycle in genetically valuable dogs, which presumes that they would be active for short periods of time and ought to safeguard the animal fertility. However, hormonal contraceptives are also used worldwide to control the reproductive activity in either domestic or feral cats, for long-term treatments, because of a pretended short-term economic interest. Progestogens are the most frequently used hormonal contraceptive in carnivores. They are rather easy to obtain across the globe and relatively cheap; they have diverse drug presentations, allowing their use independently of the veterinary assistance, and are effective in preventing pregnancy. Still a significant number of undesirable health side effects are attributed to progestins when employed with some chronicity, when applied in older animals or even when misused. In the past two decades, several new approaches to managing dog reproduction were proposed to avoid progestins. However, their efficiency and cost are still to be proven as a viable alternative around the world. This chapter aims to review the medical methods available as alternative to the progestins in canine contraception, addressing particularly the future perspectives, opportunities, and limitations linked to currently available substitutes, based on our practice. This information can be of utmost interest to students, clinicians or colonies\u27 technicians

Critical thinking education in the portuguese higher education institutions: a systematic review of educational practices

Critical Thinking (CT) education has been a field of growing concern within the Portuguese Higher Education (HE) context, in an attempt to meet the labour market needs and the most demanding and complex societal challenges. However, there is a lack of systematic literature review studies characterizing the different CT educational practices adopted by faculty teachers. Thus, this review intends to understand to what extent the Portuguese teachers in HE have been developing CT skills and dispositions in their students, in a continuous, explicit and effective way. Following the steps of review methods, 27 empirical studies complying with the inclusion criteria were analysed. Results show that CT educational practices are gradually increasing over the years, but they tend to be developed with an implicit, non-intentional and short-term basis, neglecting the development of CT dispositions in the classroom. Studies from different nature are needed (experimental, longitudinal) in order to assess the permanency or generalization of CT in students. Several difficulties were found and future work should stimulate the discussion on the ways to overcome them, guiding HE teachers and institutions in the development, support and evaluation of CT practices. Keywords: higher education; critical thinking; educational practices; literature revie

Literacia científica e autonomia na aprendizagem aplicadas à clínica de animais de companhia

O exercício da prática clínica veterinária exige constante atualização dos conhecimentos e aprendizagem ao longo da vida. Perante casos clínicos complexos, o médico veterinário deverá ser capaz de analisar a informação disponível, colhida através da anamnese e exame físico e estabelecer um plano de abordagem diagnóstica, recorrendo a meios de diagnóstico complementares, que deve selecionar de forma criteriosa, tantas vezes limitado por restrições económicas dos tutores. Uma vez estabelecido um diagnóstico definitivo, deve assegurar que o paciente recebe o tratamento mais indicado. Todos estes passos se devem enquadrar numa prática clínica baseada na evidência, combinando perícia, a mais relevante e melhor evidência científica e fatores ligados ao paciente e ao tutor. Assim, deve o médico veterinário ser capaz de procurar, selecionar e analisar a literatura científica disponível, em cada momento, de forma independente e autónoma. No presente trabalho apresentamos a perceção, recolhida por questionário anónimo online, dos estudantes finalistas do curso de Mestrado Integrado em Medicina Veterinária face à substituição de uma aula teórico-prática tradicional, expositiva, por uma sessão de duas horas em que foram distribuídos artigos científicos em inglês

Editorial: Nutriomics in livestock research

The development of high-throughput technology offers robust platforms to measure the components of the gut microbiota as well as proteins, metabolites, and coding and non-coding RNAs. Transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and metagenomics are just a few of the technologies that can be used to gather information about the genome and other biological molecules, and they are all effectively applied in the field of nutrigenomics, also known as nutritionomics, to shed light on the interactions between nutrition and the livestock genome. Integrating genomics and nutrition facilitates understanding the differences or similarities in how different candidate genes express themselves in response to food. Since nutriomics is still in its infancy, it presents an exciting potential in animal nutrition to ensure the quality of nutrition and its impact on general improvement of animal production. This Research Topic aims to assemble papers examining the effects of various diets (and/or nutrients) while feeding livestock, using nutriomics to increase productivity, enhance reproductive parameters, and prevent or modify livestock disease prevention. The nine publications that integrate this unique e-collection discuss various nutriomics topics in livestock

Estimação de parâmetros genéticos de características reprodutivas, longevidade e produtividade no porco Bísaro

Este estudo teve como objetivo estimar parâmetros, tendências e correlações genéticas de características relacionadas com a reprodução em suínos de raça Bísara. Foram utilizados 27.844 registos de parto e 206.507 registos individuais recolhidos entre 1995 e 2017. Através de um procedimento REML aplicado a modelos lineares mistos (BLUP), analisaram-se as seguintes características: número de leitões nascidos (NLT), número de leitões nascidos vivos (NLV), número de leitões nados-mortos (NLM), número de leitões desmamados (NLD), idade ao primeiro parto (IPP), intervalo entre partos (ITP), longevidade produtiva (LP), produtividade de ninhadas (PN), produtividade de leitões (PL) e eficiência produtiva (PL365). Nos modelos animal e de repetibilidade utilizados incluíram-se a exploração/ano, estação do ano, idade linear e quadrática como efeitos fixos. As estimativas de heritabilidade para características de tamanho de ninhada (NLT,NLV e NLD) foram baixas e oscilaram entre 0,007 a 0,015. As heritabilidades estimadas para caracteres de longevidade, produtividade e eficiência (LP, PN, PL, PL365) foram baixas, porém ligeiramente superiores (0,078-0,121). A IPP registou o maior valor de heritabilidade (0,345). Por sua vez, NLM e ITP apresentaram os menores valores de heritabilidade (0,007 e 0,002), contrastando com altos valores de coeficiente de variação genética aditiva (0,177 e 0,271). As correlações genéticas entre NLT e NLV (0,968), NLD e NLT (0,974), e NLD e NLV (0,945) foram positivas e muito elevadas (P <0,001). Correlações genéticas indesejáveis foram encontradas entre NLT e NSB (0,352) e entre NLV e NSB (0,107). As características de longevidade, produtividade e eficiência produtiva apresentaram correlações genéticas positivas altas (0,811-0,969) e correlações fenotípicas moderadas a altas (0,266-0,946). Não foram registadas tendências genéticas relevantes ao longo do tempo. Contudo, a IPP e LP registaram uma diminuição geral dos valores genéticos estimados médios (21,3 e 17,5) e tendências genéticas negativas com coeficientes de -0,6 e -0,4 (P <0,001), respetivamente