Bactrian camels may have a unique gastrointestinal (GI) microbiome because of their distinctive digestive systems, unique eating habits and extreme living conditions. However, understanding of the microbial communities in the Bactrian camel GI tract is still limited. In this study, microbial communities were investigated by comparative analyses of 16S rRNA hypervariable region V4 sequences of f...

The Bactrian camel is an important domesticated animal providing milk, meat, and other products in desert countries. In this study, 111 individuals representing 11 domestic Bactrian camel breeds from China, Mongolia, Russia, and one wild Bactrian camel group from Mongolia were selected for the preparation of mitochondrial DNA. The 1140-bp fragments of the cytochrome b gene (Cytb) were amplified...

The Bactrian camel includes various domestic (Camelus bactrianus) and wild (Camelus ferus) breeds that are important for transportation and for their nutritional value. However, there is a lack of extensive information on their genetic diversity and phylogeographic structure. Here, we studied these parameters by examining an 809-bp mtDNA fragment from 113 individuals, representing 11 domestic b...

The Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) gene of old world camels (Camelus dromedarius and Camelus bactrianus) was cloned and sequenced. The TLR2 gene of the dromedary camel had the highest nucleotide and amino acid identity with pig, i.e., 66.8% and 59.6%, respectively. Similarly, the TLR2 gene of the Bactrian camel also had the highest nucleotide and amino acid identity with pig, i.e., 85.7% and 81.4%...

Paratuberculosis (John's disease) is infectious and chronically progressive granulomatous disease which affects domestic and wild ruminants. The causative agent is Mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis (MAP), a slow growing mycobactin dependent acid-fast bacillus. We investigated the detection and frequency of MAP in apparently healthy dromedary and Bactrian camels by insertion sequence 900 (IS9...

Paratuberculosis (John’s disease) is infectious and chronically progressive granulomatous disease which affects domestic and wild ruminants. The causative agent is Mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis (MAP), a slow growing mycobactin dependent acid-fast bacillus. We investigated the detection and frequency of MAP in apparently healthy dromedary and Bactrian camels by insertion...

The evolutionary relationship between the domestic bactrian camel and the extant wild two-humped camel and the factual origin of the domestic bactrian camel remain elusive. We determined the sequence of mitochondrial cytb gene from 21 camel samples, including 18 domestic camels (three Camelus bactrianus xinjiang, three Camelus bactrianus sunite, three Camelus bactrianus alashan, three Camelus b...

To the Editor: Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) acquired from animals causes severe pneumonia in humans, with some chains of human-to-human transmission, leading to large outbreaks. MERS-CoV is a cause of concern for global public health. The only natural host of MERS-CoV identified so far is the dromedary camel (Camel dromedarius) (1,2), and transmission from camels to h...

Interspecies embryo transfer is a possible approach that can be used to conserve endangered species. It could provide a useful technique to preserve the Iranian and wild Bactrian camels, both of which are threatened with extinction. In the present study, one Bactrian camel was superovulated using decreasing doses of FSH (60, 40, 30, 30, 20, 20 mg, b.i.d.; Folltropin-V; Bioniche, London, ON, Can...

Bactrian camels serve as an important means of transportation in the cold desert regions of China and Mongolia. Here we present a 2.01 Gb draft genome sequence from both a wild and a domestic bactrian camel. We estimate the camel genome to be 2.38 Gb, containing 20,821 protein-coding genes. Our phylogenomics analysis reveals that camels shared common ancestors with other even-toed ungulates abo...