title: Detection and screening of bovine leukocyte adhesion deficiency in Pakistan using molecular methods.
abstract: Bovine leukocyte adhesion deficiency (BLAD) is an autosomal recessive disease. Affected animals die because of extreme susceptibility to infections caused by the lack of a membrane glycoprotein called the leukocyte integrin beta-2 subunit of CD18. The present study was planned to standardize a technique for the diagnosis of BLAD and to get an estimation of BLAD allele in the Pakistani cattle population. The study was performed on 700 animals including Holstein-Friesian (HF) (n=280), Friesian-Sahiwal (FS) (n=120) Sahiwal (n=100) cows and HF calves (n=59) from Government as well as private farms. Similarly 141 bulls of Sahiwal (n=100), HF (n=18) and FS (n=23) from the Semen Production Unit Qadirabad and Kherimorat were also sampled. The identification of normal, carrier and affected animals were made by the PCR-RFLP method. No animal was found homozygous for BLAD while 10 animals including HF calve (n=1), FS bull (n=1), HF (n=6) and FS (n=2) cows were BLAD carrier. The Hardy-Weinberg frequency of the mutant allele in HF and FS population in Pakistan was calculated to 0.01. Thus there is a need of regular screening of the bulls used for artificial insemination to avoid the risk of spreading BLAD in the cattle population of Pakistan.
authors.affiliation: Health Biotechnology Division, National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, Faisalabad, Pakistan. fozianasreen@gmail.com
authors.forename: Fozia
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Nasreen
authors.forename: Naveed
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Altaf Malik
authors.forename: Muhammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Naeem Riaz
authors.forename: Javed
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Anver Qureshi
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002020:Buffaloes / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology; D018821:CD18 Antigens / Q000235:genetics*; D002417:Cattle; D002418:Cattle Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology; D005260:Female; D006579:Heterozygote; D006720:Homozygote; D018370:Leukocyte-Adhesion Deficiency Syndrome / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000235:genetics / Q000662:veterinary*; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening; D010154:Pakistan; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length
chemical_list: D018821:CD18 Antigens