Bubalus bubalis (Ruminantia: Bovidae, Bovinae) is an economically important animal of many Asian countries, making significant contribution to milk and meat production. Sub clinical infection of the reproductive tract is one of the important causes for reduced reproductive efficiency in dairy herd of buffaloes. Antimicrobial peptides are component of innate immune system which helps in augmenti...

Background Although AQP10 is mainly expressed in the human GI tract, its physiological role is unclear. In fact, we previously reported that mouse AQP10 is a pseudogene. It is possible that AQP10 is also a pseudogene in other animals. Methods Genome databases were searched for AQP10 orthologs and the genomic DNA of each candidate pseudogene was sequenced to confirm its mutations. The expressi...

Giraffids include the only living giraffomorph ruminants and are diagnosed by the presence of bi-lobed canines and a special type of epiphyseal cranial appendages called ossicones. The family Giraffidae ranges from the latest early Miocene until today. However they are currently extant relics with only two living representatives, the African genera Okapia and Giraffa. Giraffids were much more d...

Supermatrix and supertree are two methods for constructing a phylogenetic tree by using multiple data sets. However, these methods are not a panacea, as conflicting signals between data sets can lead to misinterpret the evolutionary history of taxa. In particular, the supermatrix approach is expected to be misleading if the species-tree signal is not dominant after the combination of the data s...

Amongst the 11 eutherian-specific genes acquired from a sushi-ichi retrotransposon is the CCHC type zinc-finger protein-encoding gene SIRH11/ZCCHC16. Its contribution to eutherian brain evolution is implied because of its involvement in cognitive function in mice, possibly via the noradrenergic system. Although, the possibility that Sirh11/Zcchc16 functions as a non-coding RNA still remains, dN...

Understanding the relative influence of various abiotic and biotic variables on diversification dynamics is a major goal of macroevolutionary studies. Recently, phylogenetic approaches have been developed that make it possible to estimate the role of various environmental variables on diversification using time-calibrated species trees, paleoenvironmental data, and maximum-likelihood techniques...