Albarella Sara, Ciotola Francesca, D'Anza Emanuele, Coletta Angelo, Zicarelli Luigi, Peretti Vincenzo
Department of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Production, University of Naples Federico II, via Delpino 1, Naples 80137, Italy.
Associazione Nazionale Allevatori Specie Bufalina-ANASB, Caserta 81100, Italy.
Animals (Basel). 2017 Feb 10;7(2):9. doi: 10.3390/ani7020009.
The world buffalo population is about 168 million, and it is still growing, in India, China, Brazil, and Italy. In these countries, buffalo genetic breeding programs have been performed for many decades. The occurrence of congenital malformations has caused a slowing of the genetic progress and economic loss for the breeders, due to the death of animals, or damage to their reproductive ability or failing of milk production. Moreover, they cause animal welfare reduction because they can imply foetal dystocia and because the affected animals have a reduced fitness with little chances of survival. This review depicts, in the river buffalo () world population, the present status of the congenital malformations, due to genetic causes, to identify their frequency and distribution in order to develop genetic breeding plans able to improve the productive and reproductive performance, and avoid the spreading of detrimental gene variants. Congenital malformations most frequently reported in literature or signaled by breeders to the Department of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Production of the University Federico II (Naples, Italy) in river buffalo are: musculoskeletal defects (transverse hemimelia, arthrogryposis, umbilical hernia) and disorders of sexual development. In conclusion this review put in evidence that river buffalo have a great variety of malformations due to genetic causes, and TH and omphalocele are the most frequent and that several cases are still not reported, leading to an underestimation of the real weight of genetic diseases in this species.
世界水牛种群数量约为1.68亿头，且仍在印度、中国、巴西和意大利呈增长态势。在这些国家，水牛遗传育种计划已实施了数十年。先天性畸形的出现导致了遗传进展放缓，并给养殖者造成了经济损失，原因包括动物死亡、生殖能力受损或产奶量下降。此外，它们还导致动物福利降低，因为可能意味着胎儿难产，且患病动物体质下降，存活几率很小。本综述描述了河流型水牛（）全球种群中由遗传原因导致的先天性畸形现状，以确定其发生率和分布情况，从而制定能够提高生产和繁殖性能的遗传育种计划，并避免有害基因变异的传播。文献中最常报道的或养殖者向费德里科二世大学（意大利那不勒斯）兽医学与动物生产系报告的河流型水牛先天性畸形有：肌肉骨骼缺陷（横断半肢畸形、关节弯曲、脐疝）和性发育障碍。总之，本综述表明，河流型水牛因遗传原因出现的畸形种类繁多，甲状腺肿和脐膨出最为常见，且仍有若干病例未被报告，导致对该物种遗传疾病实际影响的低估。
