Ability to fatten Tunisian lambs in Sheepfold

L’aptitude à l’engraissement des agneaux de races tunisienne en fonction des régimes alimentaires disponibles est une demande importante voire obligatoire pour nos éleveurs à nos jours afin de trouver une synergie entre le coût de production d’un kg de viande et le prix de vente. Pour cela, on a procédé à réaliser un essai de performances des agneaux de races différentes conduits en bergerie et recevant une ration alimentaire classique à base de foin d’avoine et d’aliment concentré dans la ferme pédagogique de l'École Supérieure d’Agriculture de Mateur. Les résultats obtenus étaient dans les normes en tenant compte de la ration et l’âge des agneaux. L’ingestion moyenne de la matière sèche de foin d’avoine était de 551 g /j/agneau, l’indice de consommation moyen a été de 6,34 Kg MS/Kg de gain de poids, le poids vifs des agneaux évolue d’un semaine à l’autre pour atteindre un poids final de 18,2 kg. Mots clés: Engraissement, race ovine, Tunisie, Indice de consommationThe ability to fatten lambs of Tunisian breeds according to the diets available is an important or even a compulsory demand of our breeders today in order to find a synergy between the cost of production of one kg of meat and the price of sale. For this, we carried out a performance test of lambs of different breeds in sheepfolds and receiving a classic food ration based on oat hay and feed concentrate in the educational farm of the Higher School of Agriculture of Mateur. The obtained results were within the standards taking into account the ration and the age of the lambs. The average dry matter intake of oat hay was 551 g / day / lamb, the average consumption index was 6.34 Kg DM / Kg of weight gain, the live weight of lambs increased weekly to reach a final weight of 18.2 kg. Keywords: Fattening, sheep breed, Tunisia, Consumption inde

The effect of tobacco, XPC, ERCC2 and ERCC5 genetic variants in bladder cancer development

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In this work, we have conducted a case-control study in order to assess the effect of tobacco and three genetic polymorphisms in <it>XPC, ERCC2 and ERCC5 </it>genes (rs2228001, rs13181 and rs17655) in bladder cancer development in Tunisia. We have also tried to evaluate whether these variants affect the bladder tumor stage and grade.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The patients group was constituted of 193 newly diagnosed cases of bladder tumors. The controls group was constituted of non-related healthy subjects. The rs2228001, rs13181 and rs17655 polymorphisms were genotyped using a polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism technique.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our data have reported that non smoker and light smoker patients (1-19PY) are protected against bladder cancer development. Moreover, light smokers have less risk for developing advanced tumors stage. When we investigated the effect of genetic polymorphisms in bladder cancer development we have found that ERCC2 and ERCC5 variants were not implicated in the bladder cancer occurrence. However, the mutated homozygous genotype for XPC gene was associated with 2.09-fold increased risk of developing bladder cancer compared to the control carrying the wild genotype (p = 0.03, OR = 2.09, CI 95% 1.09-3.99). Finally, we have found that the XPC, ERCC2 and ERCC5 variants don't affect the tumors stage and grade.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These results suggest that the mutated homozygous genotype for XPC gene was associated with increased risk of developing bladder. However we have found no association between rs2228001, rs13181 and rs17655 polymorphisms and tumors stage and grade.</p

SQSTM1 mutation: Description of the first Tunisian case and literature review

Abstract Background Mutations in SQSTM1 gene have been recently identified as a rare cause of progressive childhood neurodegenerative disorder. So far, only 25 patients from 10 unrelated families were reported. Methods and results We report on the first Tunisian case of an 11‐year‐old girl with cerebellar ataxia, chorea and ophthalmoparesis. Brain MRI was normal. Whole‐exome sequencing revealed a homozygous mutation c.823_824del(p.Ser275Phefs*17) in SQSTM1 gene (GenBank: NM_003900.4). Conclusion By pooling our data to the data of literature, we delineated the phenotypic spectrum and stressed on genetic heterogeneity of this rare neurodegenerative disease