Hepatitis B virus DNA in sera of blood donors and of patients infected with hepatitis C virus and human immunodeficiency virus

With the use of PCR, we searched for hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA in serum samples from 415 HBsAg-negative, anti-HBc-positive patients: 150 were blood donors, 106 had only hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, and 159 had human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection (of which 88 were HCV positive and 71 were HCV negative). HBV DNA was detected in 4% of blood donors, 3.4% of HIV- and HCV-positive patients, and 24% of HCV-positive patients.10471872

Genetic diversity between herds of Alpine and Saanen dairy goats and the naturalized Brazilian Moxotó breed

Brazilian naturalized goat breeds are adapted to the semiarid conditions prevalent in the Northeast region of the country (which has the largest Brazilian goat heard) and represent an as yet uninvestigated source of genetic diversity. Currently, imported goat breeds are crossed with Brazilian naturalized goat breeds, endangering the genetic potential of the naturalized breeds. We used 11 microsatellite markers to determine the genetic diversity among imported (non-naturalized) dairy Alpine and Saanen goats and naturalized Brazilian Moxotó goats. We genotyped 292 goats from three herds (one private, one from the University of Minas Gerais and the Moxotó conservation herd from Embrapa Caprinos) and found that the general heterozygosity was 0.6952 for Alpine, 0.7043 for Saanen and 0.4984 for Moxotó goats. The number of alleles ranged from 5 (INRA005) to 11 (BM3205), with an average of 7 alleles per locus in the imported breeds and 3.5 alleles per locus in the Moxotó breed. Mean differentiation between populations was higher for herds (F ST S = 0.0768) than for breeds (F ST P = 0.0263), indicating similarity between the imported breeds and the existence of crosses between them. Nei's genetic distance was highest between the Moxotó breed and the imported breeds. These indicate that further studies using these molecular markers would be fruitful