Browsing by Author "Vincent, S.T"

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    Bioinformatics analysis of beta-casein gene in some selected mammalian species
    (Department of Animal Science, Nasarawa State University, Keffi., 2014-09-10) Yakubu, Abdulmojeed; Vincent, S.T; Momoh, O.M
    This study investigates in silico the genetic diversity of CSN2 on its evolutionary and differentiation within and among species and also examines the attendant effects of polymorphism on the functionality of CSN2. A total of 22 CNS2 gene sequences with corresponding amino acids belonging to 8 species [cattle (3), buffalo (3), camel (3), goat (3), horse (1), rabbit (3), rat (3) and mice (3) were retrieved from Genbank (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). All sequences were trimmed to equal length (501bp) corresponding to the same region. Sequences alignment, translation and comparison were done with ClustalW using IUB substitution matrix, gap open penalty of 15 and gap extension penalty of 6.66. The alignment revealed high polymorphism of CNS2 sequences within and among species. The Dxy inferred using p-distance revealed a maximum value of 0.68 between horse and goat and a minimum value of 0.03 between cattle and buffalo. The hypothesis of strict neutral evolution was rejected for both genes as P<0.05 for species. Also allelic sequence evolution was entirely driven by positive selection. In silico functional analysis of non-synonymous mutations using PANTHER revealed that, for CSN2, 11 of the amino acid substitutions in the peptide binding region (cattle 5, goat 3 and sheep 1) did not impair protein function. However, 3 substitutions in cattle were predicted to be harmful to protein function, also 2 potentially deleterious SNPs; 1 (Glu36Lys) for cattle and 1 (Leu206Pro) for horse were found. The NJ phylogeny revealed trans-species evolution however, UPGMA tree topology was species-wise. In conclusion, all identified deleterious SNPs should be taken into account while selecting a stock for milk production.
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    Community-Based Management of Animal Genetic Resources (AnGR): Constraints and Prospects of AnGR Conservation in the Tropics
    (Department of Animal Science, Nasarawa State University, Keffi., 2014-01-01) Vincent, S.T; Momoh, O.M; Yakubu, Abdulmojeed
    This paper reviews the constraints and prospects of community-based management of farm Animal Genetic Resources (AnGR). AnGR encapsulates all activities that ensure dynamism to withstand socio-cultural and environmental changes, thereby providing a better understanding of AnGR via characterization and documentation. Three broad reasons for conservation include economic, scientific and socio-cultural values. Conservation methods revealed two broad techniques “in situ and ex situ” which are underpinned by in vivo and in vitro principles. Rural poverty, environmental policy, urbanization and industrialization and crop production are averred as constraints of AnGR conservation. However, current global strategy, involvement of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), increasing food demand, rising need for marginal area utilization and campaign for the adoption and implementation of the sections of the Conservation Act which provides for the conservation of threatened breeds/strains are some of the prospects of conservation of AnGR. It is concluded that the most rational and sustainable way to conserve livestock genetic resources is to improve their competitiveness through sustainable breed improvement programmes (i.e. conservation through use). To this end, community or village-based selective breeding schemes with full participation of farmers appear to be the best option to start with especially in Nigeria, Sub-Saharan Africa
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    IN SILICO ANALYSIS OF BETA-LACTOGLOBULIN GENE IN SOME SELECTED MAMMALIAN SPECIES
    (Department of Animal Science, Nasarawa State University, Keffi., 2015-05-17) Yakubu, Abdulmojeeb; Momoh, O.M; Vincent, S.T
    This study investigated in silico, the genetic diversity of Beta- Lactoglobulin (β-Lg) and their evolutionary and differentiation within and among selected mammalian species; and also examined the attendant effects of polymorphism on the functionality of the gene. A total of 21 β-Lg gene sequences with corresponding amino acids belonging to 6 species [cattle (4), buffalo (4), sheep (3), goat (3), pig (3) and horse (4)] were retrieved from GenBank (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). All sequences were trimmed to equal length (500bp) corresponding to the same region. Sequences’ alignment, translation and comparison were done with ClustalW using IUB substitution matrix, gap open penalty of 15 and gap extension penalty of 6.66. The alignment revealed high polymorphism of sequences among extant species. The Dxy inferred using pdistance revealed that sheep and goat had the lowest distance of 0.05 with a maximum distance of 0.65 between goat and horse. The hypothesis of strict neutrality (dN = dS) was rejected for all extant species as allelic sequence evolution was driven by both purifying and positive selection. Only those of pig and buffalo were driven by positive selection. In-silico functional analysis of non-synonymous mutations using PANTHER revealed that, all the 12 amino acid substitutions (10 in cattle and 2 in sheep) did not impair protein function. The Neighbour-Joining phylogeny revealed trans-species evolution, but a species-wise phylogeny was obtained for UPGMA with consensus sequences. Thus, all probed SNPs from this study have no deleterious effect and can be tolerated by breeders when selecting stocks for milk improvement.
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    Linear weight estimation tapes from predictive models for matured normal feathered Nigerian indigenous chickens
    (Department of Animal Science, Nasarawa State University, Keffi., 2015-09-10) Vincent, S.T; Momoh, O.M; Yakubu, Abdulmojeed; Egahi, J.O
    This study was carried out to examine the relationship between body weight and linear body measurements in Nigerian normal feathered chickens; to develop predictive models and produce weight estimation tapes from the predictive models. Two-hundred adult normal feathered (94 males and 106 females) Nigerian indigenous chickens were randomly sampled between May and June, 2014. Traits measured were: body weight (BW), body length (BL), chest circumference (CC), neck length (NL), shank length (SL), beak length (BkL) and wingspan (WS). Data were subjected to ANOVA, bivariate correlation, simple and stepwise regression analysis. Sex-associated differences were observed for body weight and all the zoometric traits, with higher values recorded for males. The coefficients of correlation between body weight and zoometrical traits were highly significant (P<0.01) in both sexes. For both sexes, the simple model regressing CC against BW had the highest coefficient of determination (R2 = 0.65 and 0.78 for females and males, respectively). CC, WS, SL and BkL were included as the best variables for predicting BW in females in the stepwise multiple regression models. However, in males, only CC and WS were included in the model. The existing relationship between BW and zoometrical traits was leveraged upon to develop a predictive model which was in turn used to produce the first BW estimation tapes for Nigerian matured normal feathered chickens. Rural farmers could easily comprehend and use such tapes than predictive models.
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    Redundancy Elimination from Morpho-Stuctures of Nigerian Uda Rams Using Principal Component Analysis
    (Department of Animal Science, Nasarawa State University, Keffi., 2014-04-10) Vincent, S.T; Araku, J.O; Chia, S.S; Momoh, O.M; Yakubu, Abdulmojeed
    Sixteen metric traits; wither height, rump height, neck length, body length, foreleg length, hind-leg length, scrotal length, ear length, tail length, face length, neck circumference, abdominal circumference, scrotal circumference and top-line were measured on 100 randomly selected Uda rams of 6 age (milk tooth, 2-tooth, 4- tooth, 6-tooth, 8-tooth and worn teeth) groups, with the aim of eliminating redundancy using Principal Component Analysis. Mean±SD of all the measured traits were significant (P<0.05) across the different age groups. Pearson’s coefficients of correlation among the measured traits were all highly significant (P<0.01) and ranged from 0.9–0.63. Using varimax rotation of the transformation matrix, two Principal Components (PC) were extracted which total 89.14% of the total variance. PC1 accounted for 86.49% of the total observed variance and was loaded by; wither height, rump height, neck length, foreleg length, hind-leg length, scrotal length, ear length, tail length and face length which describes the overall body size. While PC2 contributes 2.64% of the total observed variance and had its loading (rump length, body length, neck circumference, abdominal circumference, scrotal circumference and top-line) for meatiness. The results suggest that PCA could be explored in breeding programs with greater success to eliminate variable redundancy.