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This review deals with the various traditional and recent methods of sire evaluation. A sire evaluation is a method of prediction of sire's next-generation produced by breeding with specified females and creating their records in a specific environment. Breeding worth of progeny tested sires are obtained through sire index method that assigns ranking to each sire based on their genetic merit. Numerous sire indices are broadly classified in two type's viz., indices which are purely meant for ranking purposes and those which, besides, provide an estimate of the breeding worth of each sire. Sires can be evaluated in single or multiple herds. The statistical equations represent sire evaluation as linear or non-linear methods. Numerous methods can be incorporated as the advances are made in sire evaluation based on data structures, breeding approaches and selection methods. There are various approaches of sire evaluation such as Least Squares Method (LSM), Simple Regressed Least Squares (SRLS), Best Linear Unbiased Prediction (BLUP) and Derivative-Free Restricted Maximum Likelihood (DFREML) for single as well as multiple trait models which can be used to derive genetic worth of an individual. An efficient method of sire evaluation shows minimum within sire variance or error variance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India is the highest milk producer of the world and crossbreeding to augment genetic potential of native breeds, has played an important role to achieve this feat. The present study with five microsatellite DNA loci BM1818, BM1443, BM1905, BM1258 and MB026 associated with Somatic Cell Score (SCS) and milk production, was aimed at finding variation in 76 crossbred cows. PCR amplified products were resolved on MetaPhore® agrose. The number of alleles for BM1443, BM1905, BM1258 and MB026 were found to be 7 each while it was 8 in BM1818. The size of alleles ranges from 149-186 bp for BM1443, 178-204 bp for BM1905, 208-252 bp for MB026 and 252-296 bp for BM1818. The data on polymorphism information content, heterozygosity, number of effective alleles of these short tandem repeat loci shows that BM1443 was having lowest and BM1818 was having maximum variability. Microsatellite BM1818 was not found to be associated with SCS in this population. Means of SCS of genotypes 178/192 and 188/188 for marker BM1905, genotypes 228/252 and 238/ 252 for marker MB026, genotype 120/110 for marker BM1258 and genotypes 182/154 and 178/154 for marker BM1443 were found to be higher. Only two markers viz. BM1818 and BM1443 was found to be significantly associated with 305 days milk yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interferon Gamma Receptor (IFNGR) genes play an important role in the immune response against mycobacteria by regulating the proinflammatory cytokine Interferon Gamma (IFNG) alongwith subsequent mycobactericidal milieu and are potential strong candidates for investigating genetic basis of disease resistance. Present investigation was aimed at exploring the association of one SNP in IFNGR1 gene and two SNPs in IFNGR2 gene with susceptibility/resistance against bovine tuberculosis infection in cattle. All the three SNPs under investigation (rs109049057, rs109579937 and rs110689128) revealed polymorphism. SNP loci rs109049057 was found to be significantly (P < 0.01) associated with susceptibility to bovine tuberculosis in cattle in our case control population. The SNP was non-synonymous, suggesting its functional role in the immune response against bovine tuberculosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Genomic DNA was isolated from the blood of 100 crossbred cattle (HF, Jersey, Brown Swiss x Hariana cattle). Exon 4 and intron 6 of lactoferrin (Lf) gene was characterized by PCR-SSCP. Two alleles of exon 4, namely E & F showing two genotypes EE and EF and two alleles of intron 6, namely A and B showing two genotypes AA and AB were found in studied population. Cloning and sequencing results revealed that in exon 4, there was one SNP in allele E and two SNPs in allele F, which changed amino acid isoleucine to valine. In intron 6 there was one SNP in allele A and three SNPs in allele B. Least square analysis for SCC and FLMY revealed that genotype AA was significantly associated with low SCC, while genotype AB was significantly associated with high SCC. However, genotype EE was significantly associated with FLMY as compared to genotype EF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]