Non-targeted Metabolomics Analysis Based on LC–MS to Assess the Effects of Different Cold Exposure Times on Piglets

Abstract

Pigs are susceptible to low temperature conditions, and cold stress causes metabolic changes in the body to increase heat production as an adaption to adverse environments. To characterize and validate different metabolites in piglet livers at different cold exposure times, sixteen 30-day-old male weaned piglets with similar weights were randomly divided into four groups: the normal temperature group (24 ± 2°C, NT) and cold exposure (4 ± 2°C) 2-h group (CS2), 6-h group (CS6), and 12-h group (CS12). At the end of the experiment, the liver samples were analyzed using systemic non-targeted metabolomics. Eight known differentially abundant metabolites (farnesyl pyrophosphate, isocitrate, triethanolamine, phenylethylamine, deoxynosine, citric acid, maltotriose, and epinephrine) were observed between the CS groups and the control group in positive and negative ion modes. The eight main differentially abundant metabolites involved in seven metabolite classifications. Metabolic pathways and enrichment analyses revealed that the pathways involved three KEGG pathway classifications. Most of the pathways were related to amino acid or energy metabolism. Moreover, the metabolic pathways were not identical under different cold exposure times, with those following 2 and 6 h of cold exposure more related to carbohydrates and energy production and those following 12 h of cold exposure more related to the metabolism connected with epinephrine. Thus, under different cold exposure times, the metabolite profiles and metabolic pathways differed.

Cold Exposure Regulates Hepatic Glycogen and Lipid Metabolism in Newborn Goats

“…At the same time, acute cold exposure increased the consumption of liver glycogen and increased protein kinase B (AKT) phosphorylation to maintain the hepatocyte energy balance in mice [ 22 ]. The glycogen content of weaned piglets at 21 days of age was significantly increased under acute cold exposure [ 23 ]. In the present study, we found that the liver glycogen content of newborn goats was increased significantly ( p < 0.01) and the TG content decreased significantly ( p < 0.01) after 24 h cold exposure, which was consistent with the results of mice and weaned piglets, indicating that cold exposure can increase liver glycogen content and decrease TG content.…”

Assessment of cold exposure-induced metabolic changes in mice using untargeted metabolomics

“…Several studies have explored the metabolic alterations induced by CE using metabolomics. But thus far, these studies have primarily focused on analyzing one or two samples from serum, BAT, WAT, and liver ( Lu et al, 2017 ; Hiroshima et al, 2018 ; Okamatsu-Ogura et al, 2020 ; Hou et al, 2021 ; Kovaničová et al, 2021 ; Chen et al, 2022 ). There has been a noticeable absence of simultaneous analysis of multiple tissues regarding the metabolic changes induced by CE.…”

Lactobacillus sp. participated in the adaptation of Rongchang piglets to cold stress

“…At present, Rongchang piglets are often raised in an open hog house by free-range farmers (Figure 1B), where the temperature is easily changeable due to the environmental conditions, especially in the winter (Andrews et al 2021;Kim et al 2022). According to the tendency of the thermal neutral zone in breeding pigs (Ross et al 2015), the lower critical temperature of piglets is the highest when in cold environment (He et al 2018), hence, the low temperature not only leads to the slow growth of piglets, but also leads to various underlying diseases (Zhang et al 2020;Yu et al 2021;Chen et al 2022).…”