Technological Advancements for Early Pregnancy Diagnosis in Cattle and Buffaloes

In spite of some remarkable discoveries in the field of bovine pregnancy, the search for a farmer friendly, easy to use pregnancy diagnosis kit in cattle and buffalo is still an unfulfilled dream. The urgency of such a kit can be understood from the fact that whole world is striving hard to develop it since last many decades. In spite of parallel successes in human pregnancy diagnosis way back in early days of year 2000, we have not been able to replicate the same concept in dairy animals. Reason is that challenges were/are many: (1) ruminant placentation is different being synepitheliochorial in contrast to hemochorial in human which may prevent the flow of embryo specific important molecules to maternal circulation in sufficient quantity, (2) the effect of volumetric fluctuation on the detectable concentration of the analyte in urine or blood or milk, and (3) the limited use of highly sophisticated skill and instrumentation for discovery purpose research in animals. Overcoming these challenges, recent past has witnessed quite remarkable achievements in identification, characterization, and validation of important pregnancy-specific molecules using various biological samples for early diagnosis of pregnancy in cows and buffaloes. This chapter delineates the physiology of pregnancy and the potential molecules for pregnancy diagnosis besides the advancements in tools for early pregnancy diagnosis.