Serum Metabolomics Revealed the Differential Metabolic Pathway in Calves with Severe Clinical Diarrhea Symptoms

Abstract

The complex etiology, higher morbidity and mortality, poor prognosis, and expensive cost of calf diarrhea have made it a catastrophic disease in the dairy industry. This study aims to assess the biomarkers in calves with diarrhea and to predict the biomarkers related to the pathway. As subjects, nine calves with diarrhea and nine healthy calves were enrolled, according to strict enrollment criteria. The serum metabolites were detected by a liquid chromatographic tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), and then analyzed by online multivariate statistical analysis software to further screen the biomarkers. In addition, the biomarkers involved in the metabolic pathways of calves with diarrhea and healthy calves were analyzed. In the serum of calves with diarrhea, nine biomarkers were found to which several biomarkers exhibited a certain relation. Moreover, these biomarkers were involved in important metabolic pathways, including protein digestion and absorption, ABC transporters, aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis, mineral absorption, and fatty acid biosynthesis. All these findings suggested that the imbalance of these markers was closely related to the occurrence and development of calf diarrhea. The targeted regulation of metabolic pathways involved in these biomarkers may facilitate the diagnosis, treatment, and discussion of the mechanism of calf diarrhea.

Role of Infection and Immunity in Bovine Perinatal Mortality: Part 2. Fetomaternal Response to Infection and Novel Diagnostic Perspectives

“…Only one paper has been published describing different metabolite profiles in perinatal mortality cases [102], but it investigated only metabolic profiles in calves with different times of death, irrespective of the cause. A recent study showed promising results using metabolic profiles in facilitating diagnosis and treatment of calves with diarrhea [103], but the number of animals was small and this work needs to be reproduced in a larger population. Also, in cases of bovine respiratory diseases, metabolic profiles could be used to identify sick animals correctly in the majority of cases [104].…”

Differential proteomic of plasma provides a new perspective on scientific diagnosis and drug screening for dampness heat diarrhea in calves

“…Few research on multi-omics techniques focused on calf diarrhea. Recently, metabolomics was used to study the mechanism of diarrhea in calves, and acetylcarnitine, indoxyl sulfate, and oxindole have been recognized to be potential biomarkers for calf diarrhea ( 11 ). Additionally, metabolites such as lecithin and choline have been found to affect the progression of DHD by interfering with the metabolism of arachidonic acid, linoleic acid, and glycerophospholipids in calves ( 12 ).…”

Metabolic Fingerprinting of Feces from Calves, Subjected to Gram-Negative Bacterial Endotoxin

“…In this regard, LC-MS technology enables high-level separation and characterization of metabolites, thereby providing accurate (semi-)quantification and identification [ 14 ]. On the subject of calves’ disease, metabolomics has already been performed, although solely focusing on plasma and/or serum and implementing targeted metabolomics [ 7 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ]. These particular studies assessed diarrhea, BRD, and sepsis in calves, whereby creatine, choline, acetate, lysine, 2-methylglutarate, allantoin, and phenylalanine were ascertained to be significantly affected by health state and therefore introduced as potential biomarkers.…”