Abstract
BackgroundWeaning of goat kids immediately after birth and feeding them on bovine or heat-treated caprine colostrum, referred to as snatching, is considered an effective control measure in some infectious diseases. The study was carried out in one-week-old goat kids to gain insight into the profile of lipid metabolites and to investigate the influence of snatching on kids’ metabolism. Fifty-two goat kids born to 23 female goats were included in the study – 22 kids were weaned immediately after birth and kept isolated from their mothers; 30 remaining kids were left with their mothers for next 3 weeks so that they could nurse on dams’ milk at will. Blood was collected at the age of 1 week and serum was obtained by centrifugation. The concentration of lipid metabolites was determined with mass spectrometry using a commercial MxP® Quant 500 kit (Biocrates Life Sciences AG, Innsbruck, Austria).ResultsConcentration of 240 lipid metabolites belonging to 10 lipid classes was above the limit of detection of the assay. These lipid metabolites were quantified and included in the analysis. Concentration of 2 lipid classes (acyl-alkyl-phosphatidylcholines and ceramides) and 31 lipid metabolites (14 triacylglycerols, 5 acyl-alkyl-phosphatidylcholines, 2 diacylphosphatidylcholines, 1 lyso-phosphatidylcholine, 5 ceramides, 2 sphingomyelins, and 2 cholesterol esters) differed significantly between the two groups of kids.ConclusionSnatching of kids results in reduction of serum concentration of lipid metabolites, however, the magnitude of this phenomenon does not seem to be sufficient to negatively affect kids’ health condition. This study is the first in which the broad set of lipid metabolites of young ruminants was quantified using the novel metabolomic assay MxP® Quant 500 kit.
Highlights
Weaning of goat kids immediately after birth and feeding them on bovine or heat-treated caprine colostrum, referred to as snatching, is considered an effective control measure in some infectious diseases
Distribution of males and females was not balanced between groups – of 30 kids left with mothers only 2 were females (7%) while there were 15 females among 22 kids weaned immediately after birth (68%) (p < 0.001) (Table S1)
The concentrations of 240 lipid metabolites (44.9% of all 535 lipid metabolites covered by the assay) were above the limit of detection (LOD) of the assay and were included in the analysis (Tables S2 and S4): 8 free fatty acids (67% of 12), 3 acylcarnitines (8% of 40), 13 cholesteryl esters (59% of 22), 9 lyso-phosphatidylcholines (64% of 14), diacyl-phosphatidylcholines (92% of 38), acyl-alkyl-phosphatidylcholines (95% of 38), 12 sphingomyelins (80% of 15), 10 ceramides (36% of 28), 5 hexosylceramides (26% of 19), 1 dihexosylceramides (11% of 9), 0 trihexosylceramides (0% of 6), 1 diacylglicerol (2% of 44), 106 triacylglycerols (44% of 242), and choline
Summary
Weaning of goat kids immediately after birth and feeding them on bovine or heat-treated caprine colostrum, referred to as snatching, is considered an effective control measure in some infectious diseases. Given that consumption of even a single portion of colostrum or milk is sufficient to give rise to the infection, weaning of kids immediately after birth and feeding them on bovine or heat-treated caprine colostrum, referred to as snatching, is considered an effective control measure [4,5,6]. This method has been shown to allow considerable reduction of the within-herd prevalence of small ruminant lentivirus infection (SRLV) [7], personal commitment of a farmer responsible for goat management seems to play crucial role in the success of this program. In our recent study [8] the difference in body weight of kids was apparent already at the age of 1 week and it gradually disappeared by the end of the third month of life
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