Research Associate National Dairy Research Institute Karnal, Haryana, India
Abstract Authors: Parul Sarwalia1&2; Sanat Bhadsavle1&3, Rahul S. Tomar1; Rakesh Kumar1; Tirtha K. Datta4
1. Animal Genomics Laboratory, National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana, India
2. Boviedge Research LLP, Karnal, Haryana, India
3. Texas A&M University, Texas, USA
4. Central Institute for Research on buffaloes, Hissar, Haryana, India
Abstract Text: In India, over 73 million artificial inseminations are performed in bovine annually (National Dairy Development Board, Year). Conventional pregnancy detection assays for livestock have a detection limit of 40-45 days post artificial insemination with poor sensitivity causing significant economic loss to Indian dairy farmers. Therefore, an early pregnancy detection kit with an ability of detecting pregnancy as early as day 25 post artificial insemination can be a game changer in India’s dairy industry with increasing the product revenue. In the pursuit of solutions to early pregnancy detection in bovine, this study focuses on developing the circulatory microRNA based lateral flow bioassay which is an invasive-paper based detection kit that can be used directly by the farmer on the field. The designed bioassay uses gold nanoparticles that embeds the capture and detection probe. The tagged nanoparticles detects the pregnancy specific microRNAs from the blood plasma of animals and gives a signal in form of a red color line which can be seen through naked eyes. The assay is simple, easy and robust in detecting the early pregnancy in buffaloes as early as day 25 post artificial insemination. The test is capable of estimating as low as 0.01nm concentration of pregnancy associated circulatory miRNA thus making it more sensitive as compared to the existing technology. The ultrasonography results also support the outputs obtained using the developed lateral flow bioassay. Since, the results are seen as a change in color with naked eye, without using an expensive laboratory equipment and expertise of handling the equipment, it is suitable for detection of early pregnancy diagnosis in bovine at farmers site However, the newly developed bioassay needs further validation to gain more confidence for cow side test.The novel microRNA based lateral flow bioassay is expected to have a promising positive impact on animal sciences especially in bovine dairy farming.
