Yak, an economically important bovine species considered as lifeline of the Himalaya. Indeed, this gigantic bovine is neglected because of the scientific intervention for its conservation as well as research documentation for a long time. Amelogenin is an essential protein for tooth enamel which eutherian mammals contain two copies in both X and Y chromosome each. In bovine, the deletion of a fragment of the nucleotide sequence in Y chromosome copy of exon 6 made Amelogenin an excellent sex-specific marker. Thus, an attempt was made to use the gene as an advanced molecular marker of sexing of the yak to improve breeding strategies and reproduction. The present study confirmed that the polymerase chain reaction amplification of the Amelogenin gene with a unique primer is useful in sex identification of the yak. The test is further refined with qPCR validation by quantifying the DNA copy number of the Amelogenin gene in male and female. We observed a high level of sequence polymorphisms of AMELX and AMELY in yak considered as novel identification. These tests can be further extended into several other specialized fields includingforensics, meat production and processing, and quality control.

In the present study, the genetic variability of the EG95 protein-coding gene in several animal and human isolates of Echinococcus granulosus was investigated. A total of 24 isolates collected from cattle, buffalo, sheep, goat, dog and man were amplified by Eg95-coding gene-specific primers. From the generated sequence information, a conceptual amino acid sequence was deduced. Phylogenetically, the Eg95 coding gene belongs to the Eg95-1/Eg95-2/Eg95-3/Eg95-4 cluster. Further confirmation on the maximum composite likelihood analysis revealed that the overall transition/transversion bias was 2.913. This finding indicated thatthere is bias towards transitional and transversional substitution. Using artificial neural networks, a B-cell epitope was predicted on primary sequence information. Stretches of amino acid residues varied between animal and human isolates when hydrophobicity was considered. Flexibility also varied between larval and adult stages of the organism. This observation is important to develop vaccines. However, cytotoxic T-lymphocyte epitopes on primary sequence data remained constant in all isolates. In this study, agretope identification started with hydrophobic amino acids. Amino acids with the same physico-chemical properties were present in the middle. The conformational propensity of the Eg95-coding gene of 156 amino acid residues had α-turns and β-turns, and α-amphipathic regions up to 129, 138–156 and 151–155 residues, respectively. The results indicated potential T-cell antigenic sites. The overall Tajima’s D value was negative (−2.404165), indicative of negative selection pressure.