Journal Article

Untargeted metabolomics confirms the association between plasma branched chain amino acids and residual feed intake in beef heifers

Pétéra, Mélanie, Taussat, Sébastien, Plateforme Exploration du Métabolisme (PFEM) ; MetaboHUB-Clermont ; MetaboHUB-MetaboHUB-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)-Université Clermont Auvergne (UCA), Polakof, Sergio, Génétique Animale et Biologie Intégrative (GABI) ; AgroParisTech-Université Paris-Saclay-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE), Bonnet, Muriel, Cantalapiedra-Hijar, Gonzalo, Durand, Stephanie, Jorge-Smeding, Ezequiel, Unité de Nutrition Humaine (UNH) ; Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)-Université Clermont Auvergne (UCA), Unité Mixte de Recherche sur les Herbivores - UMR 1213 (UMRH) ; VetAgro Sup - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur et de recherche en alimentation, santé animale, sciences agronomiques et de l'environnement (VAS)-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE), C

2022

Overview

This study explored plasma biomarkers and metabolic pathways underlying feed efficiency measured as residual feed intake ( RFI ) in Charolais heifers. A total of 48 RFI extreme individuals (High-RFI, n = 24; Low-RFI, n = 24) were selected from a population of 142 heifers for classical plasma metabolite and hormone quantification and plasma metabolomic profiling through untargeted LC-MS. Most efficient heifers (Low-RFI) had greater (P = 0.03) plasma concentrations of IGF-1 and tended to have (P = 0.06) a lower back fat depth compared to least efficient heifers. However, no changes were noted (P ≥ 0.10) for plasma concentrations of glucose, insulin, non-esterified fatty acids, β-hydroxybutyrate and urea. The plasma metabolomic dataset comprised 3,457 ions with none significantly differing between RFI classes after false discovery rate correction (FDR > 0.10). Among the 101 ions having a raw P < 0.05 for the RFI effect, 13 were putatively annotated by using internal databases and 6 compounds were further confirmed with standards. Metabolic pathway analysis from these 6 confirmed compounds revealed that the branched chain amino acid metabolism was significantly (FDR < 0.05) impacted by the RFI classes. Our results confirmed for the first time in beef heifers previous findings obtained in male beef cattle and pointing to changes in branched-chain amino acids metabolism along with that of body composition as biological mechanisms related to RFI. Further studies are warranted to ascertain whether there is a cause-and-effect relationship between these mechanisms and RFI.

• Publisher: CCSD,Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Amino acid metabolism / Amino acids / Amino Acids, Branched-Chain / Analysis / Animal biology / Animals / Beef / Beef cattle / Biology and Life Sciences / Biomarkers / Body composition / Branched chain amino acids / Cattle / Chain branching / Dehydrogenases / Diet / Disease Progression / Eating / Efficiency / Esterification / Fatty acids / Feed conversion / Feed efficiency / Feed utilization efficiency / Feeds / Female / Food and Nutrition / Gene expression / Glucose / Heifers / Insulin / Insulin-like growth factor I / Ions / Life Sciences / Male / Males / Medicine and Health Sciences / Metabolic pathways / Metabolism / Metabolites / Metabolomics / Physical Sciences / Physiological aspects / Physiology / Plasma / Urea / Veterinary medicine and animal Health
• ISBN: 0009257053000