Milk replacer restriction during early life impairs the live body weight and progesterone patterns of ewe lambs during the replacement period

Abstract

Nutritional programming caused by feed restriction during the early life may counteract the profitability of the dairy sheep farm. However, most studies have been focused exclusively on the prenatal period, and scarce information regarding the effect of milk replacer (MR) restriction on feed efficiency [residual feed intake (RFI)] and progesterone patterns of replacement ewe lambs is available. Therefore, in the present study 40 Assaf female newborn lambs were penned individually and assigned randomly to 1 of 2 treatment groups (n = 20 per treatment). The first group of lambs was fed MR ad libitum (ADLB), whereas the second one (restricted, RES) only received approximately 62.5% of the MR intake measured in the ADLB group. All the lambs were weighed twice a week until they were 35 d old. Then 8 lambs from each group were killed and a morphological study of the gut was performed. Moreover, a piece of liver was cut to measure fat content and oxidative status. The rest of the ewe lambs (24) were weaned and offered a total mixed ration ad libitum to calculate the RFI during the replacement phase. Plasma samples were collected when ewe lambs were 8 mo old to perform a nontargeted metabolomic analysis on a hybrid quadrupole-time-of-flight mass spectrometer coupled to an ultra-high-performance liquid chromatographic system. Progesterone was also measured weekly on serum samples by sequential competitive immunoassay until the end of the experiment (9.5 mo old). The results observed indicate that moderated MR restriction promoted differences in the morphology of the gut of the 35-d-old lambs, but not in the apparent digestibility or feed efficiency traits (RFI) during the replacement phase. However, there was a trend toward reduced live body weight of the RES ewe lambs when they were 9.5 mo old. Moreover, progesterone patterns revealed that only 1 RES versus 4 ADLB ewe lambs had ovulated for the first time at the end of the experiment. This evidence suggests the existence of long-term effects caused by early feed restriction with negative consequences on live body weight and reproductive traits of replacement ewe lambs.

Progesterone exerts antidepressant-like effect in a mouse model of maternal separation stress through mitigation of neuroinflammatory response and oxidative stress

“…The impact of early-life stress on the brain's capability to produce neurosteroids such as progesterone has been studied previously. In this regard, evidence demonstrated that experiencing early life stress could reduce the level of neurostroids in the brain (Brunton 2015;Santos et al 2018).…”

Liver transcriptomic and proteomic profiles of preweaning lambs are modified by milk replacer restriction

“…Regarding lambs, several studies have shown that metabolic programming events are caused by early feed restriction (Davies and Owen, 1967;Greenwood et al, 2004;Galvani et al, 2014), with negative long-term effects after the period of feed restriction. In this sense, previous studies have demonstrated negative consequences not only on the health status (Frutos et al, 2018) and feed efficiency traits (Santos et al, 2018c,d), but also on the onset of puberty in replacement ewes lambs (Santos et al, 2018c). However, even though we have found several studies in children (Ruchat et al, 2014), cattle (Soberon et al, 2012;Soberon and Van Amburgh, 2013;Alexandre et al, 2015), and pigs (Vincent et al, 2015), to our knowledge no studies have described the effects of early feed restriction at the gene expression level in artificially reared female Assaf lambs.…”

“…For this purpose, 4 liver samples from each group (8 lambs in total) were selected to cover the complete range of values of live BW at slaughter in each group and to avoid differences in birth weight between groups. Accumulated MR intake and animal performance of these preweaning lambs selected for omics (8 preweaning lambs in total) are summarized in Table 2 and Figure 1, whereas the rest of parameters measured at slaughter (16 preweaning lambs in total) are described in Santos et al (2018c). The nonslaughtered animals (24 lambs in total) were weaned and fed ad libitum a TMR to study the effects of metabolic programming provoked by early feed restriction during the replacement phase (Frutos et al, 2018;Santos et al, 2018c).…”

Moderated milk replacer restriction of ewe lambs alters gut immunity parameters during the pre-weaning period and impairs liver function and animal performance during the replacement phase

“…Regarding ruminants, a previous study (Frutos et al, 2018) B cells or non-immune cells] was observed in RES lambs, which has been suggested as a mechanism implemented to keep the homeostasis at intestinal level (Zhang and Ghosh, 2002;Malmuthuge et al, 2012;Villena et al, 2014). In any case, all these alterations in the gut could be, at least, partially responsible for the reduced animal performance of RES lambs.…”

“…It must be considered that GGT enables the metabolism of antioxidants, inflammatory molecules, drug metabolites, glutathione and glutathionylated xenobiotics (Koenig and Seneff, 2015). Therefore, the lower levels of GGT observed in the RES ewe lambs along the whole experimental period might be associated to several indicators of intracellular stress and inflammatory response (e.g., phosphatidylserine compounds and prostaglandin E2-biotin) that were over accumulated in the plasma of these animals according to their metabolome profile published previously elsewhere (Santos et al, 2018).Moreover, other studies have shown that malnutrition is related to oxidative stress conditions as a consequence of chronic inflammation events (Ece et al, 2007). In the present study a transitory imbalance in the antioxidant status during the suckling period could be observed in the pre-weaned RES lambs (e.g., lower FRAP and PON values), which also manifested proinflammatory conditions at ileal level.…”