About the Authors

Pasqualino Loi

ploi@unite.it

Affiliation Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences, Teramo University, Teramo, Italy

Kazutsugu Matsukawa

Current address: National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science, Osaka, Japan

Affiliation Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences, Teramo University, Teramo, Italy

Grazyna Ptak

Affiliation Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences, Teramo University, Teramo, Italy

Michael Clinton

Affiliation Roslin Institute and Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Josef Fulka Jr.

Affiliation Institute of Animal Production, Prague, Czech Republic

Yehudith Nathan

Affiliation Institute of Animal Science, Agricultural Research Organization, The Volcani Centre, Bet Dagan, Israel

Amir Arav

Affiliation Institute of Animal Science, Agricultural Research Organization, The Volcani Centre, Bet Dagan, Israel

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: PL AA. Performed the experiments: PL KM GP YN AA. Analyzed the data: PL KM JFJ YN. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: PL GP. Wrote the paper: PL MC JFJ AA.