Adipokines as biomarkers of postpartum subclinical endometritis in dairy cows.

Joëlle Dupont,Elisabete Silva,João Chagas E Silva,Gonçalo Pereira,Yongzhi Guo,Luís Lopes-Da-Costa,Ricardo Bexiga,Patrice Humblot,Christelle Ramé

doi:10.1530/rep-20-0183

Abstract

Adipokines emerged as regulators of metabolism and inflammation in several scenarios. This study evaluated the relationship between adipokines (adiponectin, chemerin and visfatin) and cytological (subclinical) endometritis, by comparing healthy (without), transient (recovered by 45 days postpartum (DPP)) and persistent (until 45 DPP) endometritis cows (n = 49). Cows with persistent endometritis had higher adiponectin concentrations in plasma (at 21 DPP, P < 0.05 and at 45 DPP, P < 0.01) and in uterine fluid (at 45 DPP, P < 0.001), and higher chemerin concentrations in plasma (P < 0.05) and uterine fluid (P < 0.01) at 45 DPP than healthy cows. Cows with persistent endometritis had higher gene transcription in the cellular pellet of uterine fluid and protein expression in the endometrium of these adipokines and their receptors than healthy cows. Adiponectin plasma concentrations allowed to discriminate healthy from persistent endometritis cows, in 87% (21 DPP) and 98% (45 DPP) of cases, and adiponectin and chemerin uterine fluid concentrations at 45 DPP allowed for this discrimination in 100% of cases. Cows with concentrations above the cutoff were a minimum of 3.5 (plasma 21 DPP), 20.4 (plasma 45 DPP), and 33.3 (uterine fluid 45 DPP) times more at risk of evidencing persistent endometritis at 45 DPP than cows with concentrations below the cutoff. Overall, results indicate a relationship between adipokine signalling and the inflammatory status of the postpartum uterus of dairy cows, evidencing that adipokines represent suitable biomarkers of subclinical endometritis, able to predict the risk of persistence of inflammation.

Highlights

Cow fertility is critical for the sustainable worldwide increasing demand of dairy products and the profitability of the dairy industry (Inchaisri et al 2010, Britt et al 2018)
At 21 days postpartum (DPP), there was a moderate level of agreement (Cohen’s Kappa = 0.47; P < 0.01) between the vaginal discharge Metricheck score and the endometrial cytology polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN) percentage (Supplementary Table 5A)
Postpartum dairy cows affected with persistent endometritis presented increased plasma and uterine fluid concentrations of ADIPOQ and retinoic acid receptor responder protein 2 (RARRES2), up-regulation of transcription of ADIPOQ, ADIPOR1, ADIPOR2, RARRES2, CMKLR1 and GPR1 in the cellular pellet of uterine fluid, and increased expression of ADIPOQ, ADIPOR1, ADIPOR2, RARRES2 and CMKLR1 in the endometrium

Summary

Introduction

Cow fertility is critical for the sustainable worldwide increasing demand of dairy products and the profitability of the dairy industry (Inchaisri et al 2010, Britt et al 2018). Due to the invasive nature of the sampling technique, veterinary skills required, time-consuming logistics and cost of the uterine biopsy and swab techniques, the development of reliable, non-invasive biomarkers for the early diagnosis and prognosis of endometritis has been the scope of recent research (Adnane et al 2017, Mayasari et al 2017). The early identification of biomarkers that trigger and/or signal the pathological inflammation of the endometrium would enable to predict uterine health status, administer appropriate prophylactic therapy (Adnane et al 2017) and better manage time of first insemination during the postpartum period

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