Abstract
Donkey milk is known for some nutritional and nutraceutical peculiarities compared to the milks traditionally used for human nutrition. Moreover although the number of studies on donkey milk production has increased the asinine species still remains little investigated. This is the first study providing a multiple assessment approach in order to extend the knowledge on the production of donkey milk, on the haematological and milk cytological parameters during the whole span of lactation. Furthermore, this study characterised the LYZ and OXT genes. Twenty two individual milk and blood samples from Amiatina donkey were taken at one, six and ten months after parturition. Milk total proteins and caseins and ash were significantly higher at the 1 month of lactation while the urea was lower (1.88% 0.95%, 0.41% and 26.08 mg/mL respectively). Whereas lactose and fat did not significantly changed and showed average values of 6.84 ± 0.145% and 0.67 ± 0.546% respectively. pH and titratable acidity were respectively higher (7.20) and lower (0.10 g/l of lactic acid) at 10th month. The mean values of somatic cell count/mL and of milk macrophages were low with maximum value at tenth month. The haematological parameters were stable during lactation except for mean corpuscular haemoglobin, mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration and platelet count with maximum at sixth month (respectively 20.22 pg, 36.1 g/dl, 281.16 x 109/l). This study also provides for the first time a characterisation of the LYZ gene in the Amiata donkey and describes a first polymorphism at the promoter level.HighlightsThis study extends the knowledge on the production of donkey milk, on the haematological and milk cytological parameters during the whole span of lactation.The results may have economic, health and social impacts since donkey milk is primarily targeted at sensitive consumers.Lysozyme polymorphisms could have association with anti-bacterial activity in milk and the inflammatory response in the mammary gland.
Highlights
With the advent of industrialisation, the donkey (Equus asinus) population declined drastically throughout the world
Donkey milk has on average lower fat, protein and casein content, a smaller average diameter of fat globules, lower quantity of saturated fatty acids, and a higher C18:3 n3 content of lactose (71.2 g/l) and vitamin D (Martini et al 2018a, 2018b)
The results of this study suggest that the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) g.203C>T might be useful to promote association studies with all the traits linked to the qualitativequantitative variability of donkey milk
Summary
With the advent of industrialisation, the donkey (Equus asinus) population declined drastically throughout the world. In recent years there has been increased interest in this species especially in relation to its milk production. Donkey milk is known to have particular nutritional and nutraceutical characteristics compared to the milk traditionally used for human nutrition (Altomonte et al 2019). Donkey milk has on average lower fat, protein and casein content, a smaller average diameter of fat globules, lower quantity of saturated fatty acids, and a higher C18:3 n3 content of lactose (71.2 g/l) and vitamin D (Martini et al 2018a, 2018b). The increased interest in donkey milk has led to changes in the farming management of donkeys from traditional to more organised farming systems
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