Effects of a short‐term increase in the nutritional plane before the mating period on metabolic and endocrine parameters, hepatic gene expression and reproduction in primiparous beef cows on grazing conditions

Abstract

Sixty-four spring-calved primiparous crossbred cows paired by calving date and body condition score (BCS) at calving were used to study the effect of a short-term increase in the nutritional plane before the mating period on cow and calf performance, changes in metabolic and endocrine parameters and hepatic gene expression. At 48 ± 10 days post-partum (onset of nutritional treatment = day 0), cows were assigned to two treatments during 23 days: control (grazing of native pastures; NP; n = 31) and increased nutritional plane (NP improved with Lotus subbiflorous cv Rincon; IP; n = 33). Cow body weight (BW), BCS and total protein and albumin concentrations increased while urea and non-esterified fatty acids levels decreased from the beginning of the nutritional treatment in both groups, indicating the animal positive energy balance as forage growth and availability of pastures increased during spring. In addition, cow BW and BCS, as well as calf average daily gain and BW, were greater in IP than in NP cows groups. Insulin concentrations were less in IP than in NP (1.37 vs. 2.25 ± 0.26 μU/ml) because insulin increased owing to nutritional treatment only in NP cows. Hepatic insulin receptor mRNA at day 23 tended to be 1.5-fold greater, while insulin growth factor binding protein-3 mRNA expression was 1.7-fold greater in NP than in IP cows. Reproductive responses were not affected by nutritional treatment, but days to initiation of ovarian ciclicity (108 ± 10 days) were positively correlated with insulin concentrations. Grazing of improved NP for 23 days before the mating period did not improve cow reproductive performance but modified metabolic, endocrine and gene expression parameters, in agreement with greater nutrient and energy partitioning towards milk production, reflected in better calf performance.

Supplementation with a mixture of whole rice bran and crude glycerin on metabolic responses and performance of primiparous beef cows

“…However, cows grazing on pasture improved with Lotus subbiflorus cv. Rincón, during the same period, increased BCS (Astessiano et al, 2012).…”

Effects of herbage allowance of native grasslands in purebred and crossbred beef cows: metabolic, endocrine and hepatic gene expression profiles through the gestation–lactation cycle

“…Metabolite and hormone analyses Concentrations of serum NEFA and plasma glucose were determined by spectrophotometry using commercial kits (NEFA: NEFA-HR (2); Wako Chemicals, Richmond, VA, USA; glucose: oxidase/peroxidase; BioSystems SA, Barcelona, Spain) as described by Astessiano et al (2012). The intra-and interassay CV for low, medium and high controls did not exceed 13% for the metabolites analyzed.…”

“…Primers (Supplementary Table S1) to specifically amplify cDNA of target genes: GHR, GHR-1A, IGF1, IGF-binding proteins-2 and -3 (IGFBP2, IGFBP3), acyl-CoA oxidase-1 (ACOX1), acyl-CoA dehydrogenase very long chain (ACADVL), pyruvate carboxylase (PC), phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase-1 (PCK1), fibroblast growth factor-21 (FGF21) and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-α (PPARA), and from endogenous controls: β-actin (ACTB) and hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase (HPRT) were obtained from the literature (Loor et al, 2005;Carriquiry et al, 2009;Astessiano et al, 2012) or specifically designed using Primer3 (http://frodo.wi.mit.edu/) and bovine nucleotide sequences available from NCBI (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/). Before use, primer product size (1% agarose gel separation) and sequence (Macrogen, Inc., Seoul, Korea) were determined to ensure that primers produced the desired amplicons (Supplementary Tables S2 and S3).…”

“…Real-time PCR reactions were performed in a total volume of 15 µl using KAPA SYBR ® FAST Universal 2X qPCR Master Mix (Kapa Biosystems, Inc., Woburn, MA, USA) according to Astessiano et al (2012) (Supplementary Material S1). The presence of a single PCR product was verified by the dissociation curves generated after the last cycle.…”

Metabolic Adaptations Due to the Inclusion of Pasture in the Diet of Dairy Cows Fed Total Mixed Ration during Early Lactation

“…Woburn, MA, USA) according with [14]. Gene expression one week after dietary change (+1 wk) was measured by relative quantification [15] to the expression of one week before dietary change (−1 wk) and normalized to the geometric mean expression of the endogenous control genes (HPRT, ACTB and RPS9).…”