Insights into the interplay of energy metabolic imbalance, oxidative and inflammatory status during the transition period
Stijn Heirbaut1* (Stijn.Heirbaut@UGent.be) and co-authors M. Girma1,2*, M.Q. Zhang1*, K. Geerinckx3, L. Vandaele4, V. Fievez1
1Laboratory for Animal Nutrition and Animal Product Quality, Department of Animal Sciences and Aquatic Ecology, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Belgium
2Department of Animal Science, Wollo University, PO Box, 1145, Dessie, Ethiopia
3Province of Antwerp, Hooibeekhoeve, Hooibeeksedijk 1, 2440 Geel, Belgium
4Animal Sciences Unit, ILVO, Scheldeweg 68, 9090 Melle, Belgium
*Contributed equally to this work.
This article summarizes the main results of three PhD theses: Mingqi Zhang (2024), Stijn Heirbaut (2023) and Muluken Girma Mulat (2023) conducted at the Department of Animal Sciences and Aquatic Ecology, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University. The scientific objectives of these studies aimed to deepen the understanding of the metabolic stress triad during the transition from gestation to lactation in dairy cows by elucidating the relative importance of its three facets: energy mobilization, oxidative stress, and inflammation. For this, several classification methods were applied, refined and combined based on detailed and extensive blood analyses. The analysis was based on data obtained from two experiments. The first experiment was performed at the research farm of ILVO (Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food, Melle, Belgium) from October 2018 until October 2020. The experiment (2018/329) was approved by the Ethical Committee of ILVO. In total 117 lactations from multiparous cows were monitored. The second experiment was conducted at Hooibeekhoeve (HBH), a research farm situated in Geel, Belgium. This investigation followed the preceding 2-year ILVO experiment and extended over a comparable period, from January 2021 to January 2023. Ethical approval for the experiment (EC2020-078) was obtained from the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and the Faculty of Bioscience Engineering at Ghent University. This study monitored a total of 78 multiparous lactations.
This content is for M²-DIGITAL, M²-PREMIUM, M²-INSTITUTIONAL & NMC members only.
- Log in if you have a valid subscription and continue your reading
- Or Join us today (subscribe) and get instant premium access to posts and all flipbooks
