The sperm mobility assay used in the present study measures the rate of sperm penetration in a biologically inert cell-separation solution (Accudenz). When a sample of sperm is overlaid in a cuvette containing Accudenz, sperm penetrate the solution and absorbance of the sample can be measured with a spectrophotometer. This assay has been successfully used to select chicken and turkey semen dono...

The bacteriophage P1 Cre/loxP system has become a powerful tool for in vivo manipulation of the genomes of transgenic mice. Although in vitro studies have shown that Cre can catalyze recombination between cryptic "pseudo-loxP" sites in mammalian genomes, to date there have been no reports of loxP-site infidelity in transgenic animals. We produced lines of transgenic mice that use the mouse Prot...

In the present paper, we introduce a transgenic mouse line whose sperm express green fluorescent protein (GFP) in their acrosome and red fluorescent protein (RFP) in their mitochondria [B6D2F1- Tg(CAG/su9-DsRed2, Acr3-EGFP)RBGS002Osb]. The dual fluorescent sperm showed normal fertilizing ability in both in vivo and in vitro fertilization and the sperm could be observed through uterine and ovidu...

The seminal fluid that is transferred along with sperm during mating acts in many ways to maximize a male's reproductive success. Here, we use transgenic Drosophila melanogaster males deficient in the seminal fluid proteins derived from the accessory gland (Acps) to investigate the role of these proteins in the fate of sperm transferred to females during mating. Competitive PCR assays were used...

It was reported that recombinase-A protein (RecA)-coated exogenous DNA was more likely to be integrated into mouse, goat and pig genomes. The objective of this study was to investigate whether integration of exogenous DNA into the rat genome is improved by the recombinase-mediated DNA transfer. Pronuclear microinjection of RecA-coated EGFP or OAMB DNA resulted in a production efficiency of tran...

Whole prey diets are commonly used in the zoo and home setting for captive exotic and domestic cats, respectively. Despite their increase in popularity, nutrient digestibility of such diets has been poorly studied. In this study, the precision-fed cecectomized rooster assay was used to determine the protein quality and nitrogen-corrected true ME (TMEn) of 17 whole prey samples (mice [1 to 2 , 1...

To explore efficient of different gene transfer methods and to express human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (hGM-CSF) in silk glands of transgenic silkworm, a novel transgenic vector containing a hGM-CSF controlled by silkworm fibroin heavy chain gene promoter (Pfib-H) with a neomycin resistance gene (neo) driven by BmNPV (B. mori nucleopolyhedrovirus) immediate-early gene ie-...

This study was conducted to determine caeca micro flora and tannin effects on amino acid availability (AAA) values for different grain sorghum cultivars (GSC). Three GSCs including low tannin (0.09%, LTS), medium tannin (0.19%, MTS) and high tannin (0.37%, HTS) were selected to determine AA availability compare to the corn by using the true metabolizable energy (TME) assay with both intact (INT...

1 a drug is considered to be essential if it is " as relevant today as it was 20 years ago, " and it is assessed on the basis of 4 principles. The drug must be evidence-based, efficient, flexible and forward looking. We propose here that chicken soup be classified as an essential drug; not only does it comply with these requirements, but it can be considered as relevant today as it was 2000 yea...