Supply of Methionine During Late-Pregnancy Alters Fecal Microbiota and Metabolome in Neonatal Dairy Calves Without Changes in Daily Feed Intake

Abstract

To our knowledge, most studies demonstrating the role of manipulating maternal nutrition on hindgut (i.e., large intestine) microbiota in the offspring have been performed in non-ruminants. Whether this phenomenon exists in cattle is largely unknown. Therefore, the objectives of the current study were to evaluate the impact of maternal post-ruminal supply of methionine during late-pregnancy in dairy cows on fecal microbiota and metabolome in neonatal calves, and their association with body development and growth performance during the preweaning period. To achieve this, heifer calves, i.e., neonatal female offspring, born to Holstein cows receiving either a control (CON) diet (n = 13) or CON plus rumen-protected methionine (MET; Evonik Nutrition & Care GmbH) during the last 28 days of pregnancy were used. Fecal samples from heifers were collected from birth until 6 weeks of age, i.e., the preweaning period. Fecal microbiota was analyzed with QIIME 2 whereas fecal metabolites were measured using an untargeted LC-MS approach. At birth, MET heifers had greater (P ≤ 0.05) BW, HH, and WH. During the preweaning period, no differences between groups were detected for starter intake (P = 0.77). However, MET heifers maintained greater (P ≤ 0.05) BW, HH and tended (P = 0.06) to have greater WH and average daily gain (ADG) (P = 0.10). Fecal microbiota and metabolome profiles through 42 days of age in MET heifers indicated greater capacity for hindgut production of endogenous antibiotics and enhanced hindgut functionality and health. Enhancing maternal post-ruminal supply of methionine during late-gestation in dairy cows has a positive effect on hindgut functionality and health in their offspring through alterations in the fecal microbiota and metabolome without affecting feed intake. Those alterations could limit pathogen colonization of the hindgut while providing essential nutrients to the neonate. Together, such responses contribute to the ability of young calves to achieve better rates of nutrient utilization for growth.

Neonatal Diet Impacts the Large Intestine Luminal Metabolome at Weaning and Post-Weaning in Piglets Fed Formula or Human Milk

“…The supervised partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) score plot for the QC samples ( Supplemental Figure 1 ) showed the tight clustering of the QC samples indicating the precise outcome from the metabolites process. Metabolites peak intensities were normalized by the sum of all identified metabolites ( 33 ) and log transformed prior to multivariate statistical analysis ( 34 ). The PLS-DA score plots were used to see the overall difference between metabolite profiles of HM and MF groups followed by Pattern Hunter analysis in MetaboAnalyst to detect the significant differences in metabolites between groups.…”

“…The PLS-DA score plots were used to see the overall difference between metabolite profiles of HM and MF groups followed by Pattern Hunter analysis in MetaboAnalyst to detect the significant differences in metabolites between groups. A metabolite was considered to be statistically different when P - value ≤ 0.05, Benjamini-Hochberg adjusted false discovery rate (FDR) ≤ 0.15, and variable importance in projection (VIP) score > 1.0 ( 34 , 35 ). Based on the identification of the significantly altered metabolites in HM and MF-fed groups, we calculated the fold change (FC) for each metabolite.…”

Residual feed intake divergence during the preweaning period is associated with unique hindgut microbiome and metabolome profiles in neonatal Holstein heifer calves

“…Total metagenomic DNA was subjected to Fluidigm Access Array Amplification (Fluidigm Corporation, South San Francisco, CA, USA) for DNA amplification. The V3-V4 hyper-variable region of 16S rRNA gene was sequenced with the Illumina MiSeq V2 platform (Illumina, San Diego, CA, USA) to obtain pairedend reads of 250 bp [18]. Data quality filters on the raw microbiome sequences were applied with Illumina software.…”

Human Milk-Fed Piglets Have a Distinct Small Intestine and Circulatory Metabolome Profile Relative to That of Milk Formula-Fed Piglets

“…The raw data were checked for data integrity, and no missing values were detected after the peak's filtration. Data were normalized by sum of all identified metabolites in rowwise procedures allowing adjustment for differences among samples (64), autoscaling (mean-centered and divided by standard deviation of each variable), and log transformation prior to downstream statistical analysis (65). Multivariate analysis was performed using supervised partial least-squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA).…”