Utilization of live body weight, measurements, and eye muscle components to predict carcass performance of fattened Egyptian male buffalo calves.

Carcass performance of 12 fattened male buffalo calves equally grouped by slaughter weights of 300, 350, 400, and 450 kg was evaluated. Six parameters of body measurements such as chest girth, height at withers, body length, body depth, width at pin bones, and diagonal body length were recorded for each calf immediately before slaughter to test their relationships with live body weight, carcass weight (hot and cold) and its components (head, legs, liver, heart, etc.), and eye muscle area at the 10th-13th ribs. Boneless meat and bones formed 36.6 to 39.0% and 9.3 to 11.0% of live weight, respectively. Chest girth had strong correlation with all carcass traits except bone weight and was the best predictor of boneless meat and carcass fat weights (R2 = 0.90, 0.78). The slaughter weight and height at withers and the 10th-13th rib fat weight were the best predictors of hot and cold carcass (R2 ≥ 97.0), carcass bones (R2 = 76%), and hot and cold carcass (R2 = 85.0, 86.5%) weights, respectively.

HLA class II antigen presentation by prostate cancer cells.

Prostate cancer is the second most commonly diagnosed cancer in men. Recent evidence suggests that reduced expression of target protein antigens and human leukocyte antigen (HLA) molecules is the predominant immune escape mechanism of malignant prostate tumor cells. The purpose of this study was to investigate the prospect of antigen specific immunotherapy against prostate cancer via the HLA class II pathway of immune recognition. Here, we show for the first time that prostate cancer cells express HLA class II proteins that are recognized by CD4+ T cells. Prostate tumor cells transduced with class II molecules efficiently presented tumor-associated antigens/peptides to CD4+ T cells. This data suggests that malignant prostate tumors can be targeted via the HLA class II pathway, and that class II-positive tumors could be employed for direct antigen presentation, and CD4+ T-cell mediated tumor immunotherapy.Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases (2008) 11, 334-341; doi:10.1038/sj.pcan.4501021; published online 16 October 2007.

Relationship between system of raising Egyptian buffaloes and the effect of climate conditions on the helminthic infection rate, middle Delta, Egypt.

No doubt climate conditions are of sound influence in both prevalence of helminthic infection and the physiology of the host. Fewer studies have been done on this relationship on farm animals. To complete the view, one thousand, two hundred and seventy eight buffaloes owned by farmers from 160 herds belong to 32 villages in the middle Delta of Egypt were randomly chosen to study factors which influence the infection with gastrointestinal parasites. Relationship between number of parasites, herd size, resources of water and season of the year were investigated. The main results showed that: (1) Fasciola gigantica infection recorded the highest percentage, 48.04% followed by Neoascaris vitulorum and Eimeria spp. (2) Percentage rates of parasitic infection (single, double or triple) in each animal were 62.80%, 29.43% and 7.77%, respectively. (3) Infection rate tended to increase with herd size in most cases. (4) Resource of water had highly significant effect on infection rate. (5) The highest infection was recorded in summer and the lowest in spring or winter. (6) A negative and highly significant correlation between infection and number of parasites (0.99). Herd size did not associate with infection, while temperature and relative humidity correlated significantly with infection rate (0.67 and 0.78) respectively.