EN
Buffalo (Bubalus bubalis and Bubalus carabanesis) are important animals in livestock and agricultural economy of many countries, providing milk, meat and hides along with draught power.But, despite of immense advantages buffalo is a heavily neglected animal. The real potential of buffalo has never been realized and challenges such as reduced reproductive efficiency still needed to be addressed. At the onset of genomic era, after sequencing of entire cattle genome and recently sequencing of buffalo genome, there is a start of new chapter of buffalo research. This review is focused to highlight the recent advances in genome science of buffalo with respect to cytogenetic studies, whole genome mapping and application of next generation sequencing. These resources of genome science can be applied to provide knowledge and technologies to enhance the production potential to the optimum level, improve reproduction efficiency and increase disease resistance in buffalo. Buffalo and domestic cattle belong to same family and are closely related on phylogenetic tree. Therefore, available cattle genetic and genomic resources can be used as shortcuts by researchers to explore genome of buffalo and apply biotechnology tools for buffalo improvement.