PSIV-B-15 - Effects of Different Prenatal Nutrition Strategies on Liver Metabolome of Bulls and Its Correlation with Body and Liver Weight

Abstract: The impacts of maternal nutrition throughout the life of offspring have been studied in the last decades. However, some molecular mechanisms and responses involved in fetal programming in beef cattle remain unclear. This study investigated the effect of different prenatal nutrition strategies on liver metabolome and on body and liver weight of Nellore bulls at slaughter. For that purpose, three nutritional treatments were applied in 126 cows during pregnancy: NP – (control) only mineral supplementation; PP – protein-energy supplementation in the third trimester; and FP – protein-energy supplementation during the entire pregnancy. The pre-slaughter body weight and liver weight from male offspring were evaluated and a targeted metabolomics analysis (AbsoluteIDQ p180 Kit; 180 metabolites) was performed in liver of bulls (n = 18, 22.5 ± 1 months of age). Data were submitted to principal component analysis (PCA), analysis of variance (ANOVA), enrichment analysis and Pearson’s correlation analysis. The phenotypes did not show differences among treatments (p > 0.05). Metabolites PCA showed an overlap of treatments clusters in the analysis. We found metabolites that were significant in ANOVA (p ≤ 0.05; Glycine, Hydroxytetradecadienylcarnitine, Aminoadipic acid and Carnosine). Enrichment analysis revealed some biological processes (p ≤ 0.05; Histidine metabolism, beta-Alanine metabolism and Lysine degradation). Pearson’s correlation analysis showed 29 significant correlated metabolites with body weight (p ≤ 0.05) and 1 metabolite correlated with liver weight (Symmetric dimethylarginine; r = 0.51; p ≤ 0.05). In summary, prenatal nutrition did not show effects on phenotypes evaluated, but affected some metabolites and biological pathways mainly related to oxidative metabolism. In addition, body weight seems to influence the hepatic metabolome more than liver weight, due to the amount and magnitude of correlations found.