Natalija Fratric

• Faculty of veterinary medicine, Univwersity of Belgrade

Redox imbalance in peripartum period influences health of dairy cows and their foetus and, through the colostrum, health of new-born calves. Oxidative stress in cattle can be suppressed by dietary supplementation with natural minerals, and we investigated the effect of supplementation with organically modified clinoptilolite on redox status paramet...

This research paper addresses the hypothesis that an oral supplementation with organically modified clinoptilolite will improve colostrum quality in primiparous dairy cows whilst having no adverse effects on the cows' health. A total of 36 pregnant Holstein primiparous dairy cattle were randomly assigned to receive daily oral drenching, two hours f...

Calf bronchopneumonia is accompanied by increased level of circulating immune complexes (CIC), and we analysed size, and protein and lipid constituents of these CIC with an attempt to elucidate the connection between the CIC structural properties and their capacity to modulate leukocyte function. CIC of heathy calves (CICH) and calves with naturall...

Objective: The objective of this study was to determine correlation between serum blood and milk enzyme activities of aspartate- aminotransferase (AST), alanine-aminotransferase (ALT) and alkaline-phosphatase (ALP) in the different stage of lactation in dairy cows as markers for diagnosis subclinical metabolic diseases.

Objective: According to blood biochemical indicators, ketosis in cows may be diagnosed when the following values match the clinical signs: beta-hγdroβγbutγrate (BHB) > 1.2 mmol/l, glucose < 2.5 mmol/l, and triglycerides (TG) < 0.12 mmol/l, and blood values: non-esterified fattγ acids (NEFA) > 0.7 mmol/l and aspartate-transaminase (AST) activity abo...

Failure of passive transfer (FPT) of immunoglobulins (IgG) is associated with increased morbidity and mortality of calves. In this study we evaluated the digital Brix refractometer usefulness for the assessment of FPT. A number of 16 colostrum samples from the first milking (2-3h post-partum) of Holstein-Friesian dairy heifers and 29 blood sera of...

Early embryonic development may be negatively affected by insufficient progesterone (P4) production. Therefore, the aim of our study was to increase P4 by gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) and/or human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) treatments after inducing oestrus by prostaglandin (PG) treatment. Lactating Simmental dairy cows (n = 110), betwee...

Calf bronchopneumonia is complex multifactorial disease and for its accurate diagnosis and therapy, besides clinical examination, microbiologic, hematologic and biochemical analyses could be necessary. In general, additional analyses are not implemented, mainly because the disease biomarkers are not defined. To establish which analysis might be use...

The objective of this study was to determine insulin resistance in healthy (n=8) and ketotic (n=7) dairy cows based on the difference between basal and dynamic changes in glucose, insulin, non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA), ß-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) concentrations, and on the determination of their mutual relationship and relationship with insulin re...

Prenatal development period is of critical importance since it can significantly influence how animals will latter respond to their environment throughout life. In utero immune development occurs independently of antigen exposure. Only later during development can a fetus respond to antigens, and even then the response depends on the stage of fetal...

In this work we studied if circulating immune complexes (CIC) of calves with bronchopneumonia have the capacity to modulate function of peripheral blood leukocytes of healthy cattle. CIC of three month old calves (6 healthy and 6 diseased) were isolated by PEG precipitation. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (MNCs) and granulocytes from healthy ca...

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the loss in body condition score (BCS) and loss (ABCS), energy balance (EB), hepatic lipidosis and blood serum concentration of non esterified fatty acids (NEFA), glucose, triacylglycerol (TAG) and total bilirubin (tBIL) in healthy dairy cows during transition period. Twenty healthy...

The objective of this experiment was to evaluate the metabolic status of late pregnant and early lactation dairy cows based on changes in characteristic blood metabolites. Blood samples were collected from 15 late pregnant cows and 15 early lactation cows to measure beta-hydroxybutyrate (BNB), non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA), triglycerides (TG),...

Background: Production diseases, such as those associated with improper nutrition or management are common in transitional high-yielding dairy cows. The diseases listed in this include: the fat liver syndrome, ketosis, oxidative stress, laminitis, mastitis, milk fever, retained placenta, metritis and infertility. The diseases occur mainly around ca...

Bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV) and infectious bovine rhinotracheitis virus (IBRV) are important viral diseases around the world. The objective of this study was to estimate the prevalence of seroconversion to BVDV and IBRV. Serum samples from 152 bovines were collected from two counties (Tulcea and Brăila) in the southeastern region of Romania...

The objective of this experiment was to evaluate the metabolic status of late pregnant and early lactation dairy cows based on changes in characteristic blood metabolites. Blood samples were collected from 15 late pregnant cows and 15 early lactation cows to measure beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), non-esterifified fatty acids (NEFA), triglycerides (TG)...

Fifteen early-lactation cows and 15 mid-lactation cows were chosen for the analysis. Blood samples were collected to measure the beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA), triglycerides (TG), glucose (Glu), total protein (TP), albumin (ALB), total bilirubin (TB), urea (U) and the activity of aspartate transaminase (AST) and gamm...

The objective of this study was to determine the levels of insulin, insulin like growth factor I (IGF-I) and thyroid hormones in relation to the body condition score (BCS) of periparturient dairy cows. The study was carried out on twenty Holstein-Friesian dairy cows with average milk production of 7000 L/305 days in the previous lactation, parity r...

Immune complexes (IC) could have an important role in the pathogenesis of pre-ruminant calves’ bronchopneumonia. IC are potent activators of complement and neutrophils and they might be responsible for immune protection, as well as for pulmonary damage. Immunoglobulin G (IgG), as constituents of IC, initiates the effector phase of immune response t...

Pneumonia in preruminant calves is a multifactorial disease. Infectious agents, the environment, management and the immune status of the calves are all important factors in determining the outcome of an infection. Until today, the level and composition of circulating immune complexes in preruminant calves with pneumonia have not been studied in det...

The work presents the results of investigations of the effect of moderate heat stress on the acidobasal status in high-yield dairy cows in early lactation. Improving performance in high-yield dairy cows increases their inclination toward metabolic disorders. The most likely to be affected is the acid-base balance, in particular when cows are expose...

Preruminant calves encounter numerous antigens, and formation of immune complexes is necessary for antigens elimination. The capability of immunologically immature calves to form immune complexes has not yet been studied in detail. For immune complexes studies, selective precipitation by PEG was performed, in combination with agarose gel electropho...

Oral zeolite treatement effects on the blood serum free amino acid pattern in newborn calves was investigated. The total number of 30 newborn Holstein calves of both sexes, weighting 35±3 kg (mean±SD), were immediately after parturition separated from their dams and placed in individual pens. Calves were divided in two experimental groups, 15 calve...

The polymorphism of 11 microsatellite DNA markers (TGLA227, BM2113, TGLA53, ETH10, SPS115, TGLA126, TGLA122, INRA23, ETH3, ETH225, BM1824) was analyzed in order to assess the usefulness of these markers for pedigree verification in the Serbian population of Simmental cattle. A total of 86 animals were involved in the study. Genomic DNA was extracte...

The objective of this work was to examine whether concentrations of cortisol, insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) and immunoglobulin G class (IgG), in fact blood parameters which are believed to be of extreme importance in the postnatal survival of calves, are dependant on the body mass of calves at birth. Investigations were performed on 12 newbo...

The work presents the results of investigations of the effect of natural zeolite (clinoptilolite type) on the degree of resumption of cloistral immunoglobulin, the value of hematological parameters and enzyme activity in blood serum (AST, ALT, and LDH), body mass, and daily growth of calves in the first three months of life. Investigations were car...

Sixty Holstein newborn calves, which were immediately after parturition separated from their dams and placed in individual pens, were randomly assigned to 4 treatment groups (15 calves per group). All calves were bottle-fed twice a day during the first 48 hours after partus, with their mothers&apos; colostrum in 12 hour intervals, starting two hour...

The aim of the study was to investigate the influence of added natural mineral adsorbent zeolite (clinoptylolite) on the degree of absorption of immunoglobulin G and on glucose and protein concentration in the blood of calves during the neonatal period. Sixty calves were randomly divided in to four groups (15 calves per group). The quality and timi...

In this work immune complexes (IC) in the sera of healthy calves from birth to four months of age, heifers and cows were investigated. Polyethylen glycol (PEG) precipitation assay was applied after previous standardization. Optical density (OD) of redissolved precipitates, formed after adding PEG to serum samples, was a measure of IC level. The upp...

The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of the natural mineral adsorber clinoptilolite on serum levels of thyroid hormones in newborn calves in the first 48 hours postpartum. A total number of 68 newborn Holstein calves divided in four groups were used in the present study. Calves were randomly assigned to one of the following treatm...

The aim of the study was to investigate the influence of added natural mineral adsorber zeolite (clinoptilolite) to the colostrum on the degree of absorption of colostral IgG in 60 Holstein newborn calves fed different amounts of colostrum during the first two days of life. Calves were divided in four groups: 1) experimental group I received 0.75L...

Colostrum in domestic animals contains numerous bioactive substances like insulin and insulin-like growth factors (IGF-I and IGF-II), epidermal growth factor (EGF), immunoglobulins (Ig), lactoferin (Lf), transferin (Tf) and others. Many of them have distinct functions and stimulate growth and glucose utilization, or have some other, still unknown r...

In this study we investigated the presence of antisperm antibodies in the sera of neonatal and young calves up to the age of 120 days by indirect immunofluorescence assay (IIP) and the sperm-agglutination method. By IIP assay, anil IgG and ants IgM antibodies were detected. In the sera of neonatal calves, before colostrum ingestion, no anti-sperm a...

The aim of this study was to estimate the influence of the presence of added natural zeolites on the degree of absorption of colostral IgG in newborn piglets. The experimental groups were fed colostrum and a mineral adsorbent preparation was given per os at a total concentration of about 5 g/l colostral intake per day divided into two of four doses...