01) than that of other diets. Cows fed elephant grass spent more time intake (p = 0.01). Diets did not influence milk yield (p = 0.47), and the milk yield corrected for 3.5 fat (p = 0.22), final weight (p = 0.06), and intake efficiency (p = 0.57), presenting a mean of 14.16 kg/day, 15.94 kg/day, 590 kg, and 0.9 kg of milk/kg of ingested dry matter, respectively. The utilization of pseudostem hay associated with other roughage can be an alternative to milk yield in F1 Holstein/Zebu cows.The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of ensiled brewers spent grain (BSG) when used as replacement to cotton seed cake in the concentrate diet of lactating crossbred dairy cows. Eight early lactating F1 Boran X Friesian cows were used in a short term feeding trial to identify optimum level of ensiled BSG substitution of cotton seed cake (0, 33, 66, and 100%) in iso-nitrogenous diets. A 4 × 4 double Latin square design was used to analyze the data set generated from the feeding and digestibility trials. The results showed that as the level of ensiled BSG replacement to cotton seed cake increased, daily intakes on the natural pasture hay 8.1 (T1) vs 7.6 (T2), 6.0 (T3), and 5.1 (T4); total feed dry matter 14.6 (T1) vs 14.0 (T2), 12.9 (T3), and 12.2 (T4); crude protein (CP) 2.0 (T1) vs 1.9 (T2), 1.8 (T3), and 1.7 (T4); neutral detergent fiber (NDF) 8.4 (T1) vs 8.2 (T2), 7.4 (T3), and 6.8 (T4); and acid detergent fiber (ADF) 4.8 (T1) vs 4.5 (T2), 3.8 (T3), and 3.3 (T4) decreased (P  0.05). Thereafter, differences in daily EME intakes and body weight changes decreased with an increase in the level of ensiled BSG in the concentrate diet (P  less then  0.05) compared with both the control and animals on T2. Ensiled BSG, on the other hand, substantially improved (P  less then  0.05) total ration's apparent digestibility of dry matter (DM) 629 (T1) vs 659 (T3), 686 (T4); CP 676(T1) vs 690(T3), 738(T4); NDF 524 (T1) vs 544 (T3), 581 (T4); and ADF 341 (T1) vs 350 (T2), 392 (T3), 440(T4) and daily milk yield 14.5 (T1) vs 15.4 (T4) and milk production efficiency 0.98 (T1) vs 1.11 (T3) and 1.26 (T4). So, ensiled BSG can be recommended to fully replace cotton seed cake from the concentrate diet of lactating dairy cows under local conditions. Additional research is needed to minimize and/or avoid body weight loss, milk fat, and total solids.This study was conducted to investigate the molecular characterization and pathogenicity of very virulent infectious bursal disease virus (vvIBDV) isolated from naturally infected turkey poults and possible spread to chickens. Thirty samples were collected from turkey poults in the vicinity or in the same backyards with chickens suspected to be infected with IBDV and from live bird markets from different localities in Dakahlia governorate, Egypt. There were no obvious clinical signs in tested turkey poults except dehydration and whitish diarrhoea in some birds with no mortality, and post-mortem lesions were observed in few birds as atrophied bursae, nephritis and petechial haemorrhages on thigh muscles. Selleck BI-3231 Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), histopathological examination and immunohistochemistry were used for identification of the IBDV. Out of 30 tested samples, 17 samples (56.7%) were positive by RT-PCR. Phylogenetic analysis of VP2 gene of two selected IBDV strains (turkey 1 and turkey 2) showed a close genetic relationship to vvIBDV strains (serotype 1) isolated from chickens in Egypt and other countries with 93.1 to 95.99% identity for turkey 1 strain and 95.54 to 98.51% for turkey 2 strain. Both turkey 1 and turkey 2 strains were closely related to the Nigerian vvIBDV strain isolated from turkeys with 95.78% and 96.37% identity, respectively. Sequence analysis of both strains demonstrated that they have conserved amino acid residues of vvIBDV (I242, I294 and S299) and Y220F amino acid substitution which is very common in Egyptian vvIBDV chicken strains, while Turkey 1 strain has amino acid substitutions at A222P and I256V. Histopathological examination showed marked depletion of bursal lymphoid tissue. In conclusion, for the first time in Egypt, the molecular characterization and pathogenicity confirmed the presence of natural infection of turkey poults with vvIBDV (serotype 1) with possible spread to chickens causing severe economic losses.Trypanosoma cruzi is the etiological agent of Chagas disease, whose clinical outcome ranges from asymptomatic individuals to chronic fatal megasyndromes. Despite being central to pathogenesis, the regulation of parasite virulence factors' expression remains largely unknown. In this work, the relative expression of several parasite virulence factors between two TcI strains (Ninoa, low virulence and Qro, high virulence) was assessed by qRT-PCR of total and of polysome-associated mRNA, as well as by western blots. Trypomastigotes were also incubated with specific anti-sense morpholino oligonucleotides to block the translation of a selected virulence factor, calreticulin, in both strains. Ninoa trypomastigotes showed significantly lower levels of trypomastigote-decay acceleration factor, complement regulatory protein, complement C2 receptor inhibitor trispanning, and glycoproteins 82 and 90 mRNAs compared with Qro. There was a significantly lower recruitment of complement regulatory protein and complement C2 receptor inhibitor trispanning mRNAs to polysomes and higher recruitment of MASP mRNA to monosomes in Ninoa strain. Calreticulin mRNA displayed both a higher total mRNA level and recruitment to translationally active polysomes in the Ninoa strain (low virulence) than in the Qro strain (high virulence). When calreticulin was downregulated by ≈ 50% by anti-sense morpholino oligonucleotides, a significant decrease of parasite invasion in mammalian cells was found in both strains. Calreticulin downregulation, however, only increased significantly the activation of the complement system by Ninoa trypomastigotes. These results suggest a role for the regulation of virulence factors' gene expression in the differential virulence among T. cruzi strains. Furthermore, a possible function of calreticulin in parasite invasion not related to its binding to complement factors is shown.