Effects of food deprivation on ketonaemia, ketogenesis and hepatic intermediary metabolism in the non-lactating dairy cow

Abstract

1. The aim of this work was to investigate why non-lactating dairy cows are less susceptible to the development of ketonaemia during food deprivation than are dairy cows in early lactation. 2. The first experiment (Expt. A) consisted of determining the effect of 6 days of food deprivation on the concentrations of ketone bodies, and of metabolites related to the regulation of ketogenesis, in jugular blood and liver of non-lactating cows. 3. During the food deprivation, blood ketone-body concentrations rose significantly, but to a value that was only 16% of that achieved in lactating cows deprived of food for 6 days [Baird, Heitzman & Hibbitt (1972) Biochem. J. 128, 1311--1318]. 4. In the liver, food deprivation caused: a rise in ketone-body concentrations; a fall in the concentration of glycogen and of various intermediates of the Embden-Meyerhof pathway and the tricarboxylic acid cycle; an increase in cytoplasmic reduction; a decrease in the [total NAD+]/[total NADH] ratio; a decrease in energy charge. These changes were all qualitatively similar to those previously observed in the livers of the food-deprived lactating cows. 5. There appeared therefore to be a discrepancy in the food-deprived non-lactating cows between the absence of marked ketonaemia and the occurrence of metabolic changes within the liver suggesting increased hepatic ketogenesis. This discrepancy was partially resolved in Expt. B by the observation in two catheterized non-lactating cows that, although there was a 2-fold increase in hepatic ketogenesis during 6 days of food deprivation, ketogenesis from the splanchnic bed as a whole (i.e. gut and liver combined) declined slightly owing to cessation of gut ketogenesis.