MORPHOMETRIC AND MOLECULAR STUDIES OF THE CORRELATION BETWEEN CHRONIC MASTITIS AND INFERTILITY IN DAIRY CATTLE
type: CreativeWork
description: Dairy cow fertility has declined over the past decades even within the recent developments in functional genomics and genetic selections. There is overwhelming evidence that increasing genetic merit for milk yield considerably reduces fertility and the strength of negative associations between yield and fertility is obviously towards a rising trend. The deterioration of resistance or increased susceptibility to mastitis as well as reduced fertility in today’s cow, are the examples of undesirable side-effects of the high emphasis on production traits in selection decision. Although, recent studies suggested an association between reproductive failure and mastitis in lactating dairy cows, our understanding of how mastitis affects reproduction is still limited. In this context, we investigated the effects of naturally occurring chronic mastitis on fertility particularly at the level of bovine ovarian stroma with matrix fibers, follicular growth factors, characteristic micro-architecture of stromal vasculature, as well as growth and development of follicles by macroscopic and microscopic morphological as well as immuno-detection based molecular analysis of the ovaries collected at slaughter. Ovaries and milk samples were collected from 74 cows at slaughter. Milk samples from each quarter, were analyzed following National Mastitis Council procedures. Following macroscopic assessment, ovaries of 63 animals were scored as healthy, intermediate and pathological. Based on the presence of major pathogens and somatic cell count results, animals were sorted in 9 groups but only the two extremes were considered for further analysis: uninfected (n = 8) and affected by chronic mastitis (n = 9). Primordial, primary and secondary follicles were counted and scored on similar surface area of ovary sections for each animal (mean ± SD= 5.65 ± 0.25 cm2). They were analyzed with Fisher’s exact test and the association between health status and follicle number was estimated by odds ratios …
abstract: Dairy cow fertility has declined over the past decades even within the recent developments in functional genomics and genetic selections. There is overwhelming evidence that increasing genetic merit for milk yield considerably reduces fertility and the strength of negative associations between yield and fertility is obviously towards a rising trend. The deterioration of resistance or increased susceptibility to mastitis as well as reduced fertility in today’s cow, are the examples of undesirable side-effects of the high emphasis on production traits in selection decision. Although, recent studies suggested an association between reproductive failure and mastitis in lactating dairy cows, our understanding of how mastitis affects reproduction is still limited. In this context, we investigated the effects of naturally occurring chronic mastitis on fertility particularly at the level of bovine ovarian stroma with matrix fibers, follicular growth factors, characteristic micro-architecture of stromal vasculature, as well as growth and development of follicles by macroscopic and microscopic morphological as well as immuno-detection based molecular analysis of the ovaries collected at slaughter. Ovaries and milk samples were collected from 74 cows at slaughter. Milk samples from each quarter, were analyzed following National Mastitis Council procedures. Following macroscopic assessment, ovaries of 63 animals were scored as healthy, intermediate and pathological. Based on the presence of major pathogens and somatic cell count results, animals were sorted in 9 groups but only the two extremes were considered for further analysis: uninfected (n = 8) and affected by chronic mastitis (n = 9). Primordial, primary and secondary follicles were counted and scored on similar surface area of ovary sections for each animal (mean ± SD= 5.65 ± 0.25 cm2). They were analyzed with Fisher’s exact test and the association between health status and follicle number was estimated by odds ratios …
author: M.M. Rahman
language: eng
keywords: chronic, mastitis, ovary, infertility, correlation, Settore VET/01 - Anatomia degli Animali Domestici
date published: 2010-12-14
date modified: 2026-07-27T20:19:15Z
provider: Università degli Studi di Milano
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Università degli Studi di Milano

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/2434/150175

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.13130/rahman-mohammad-mahbubur_phd2010-12-14