Recent advances in the regulation of milk fat synthesis

Whole intact rapeseeds or sunflower oil in high-forage or high-concentrate diets affects milk yield, milk composition, and mammary gene expression profile in goats

This study aimed to ascertain the response of goat mammary metabolic pathways to concentrate and lipid feeding in relation to milk fatty acid (FA) composition and secretion. Sixteen midlactation multiparous goats received diets differing in forage-to-concentrate ratio [high forage (HF) 64:36, and low forage (LF) 43:57] supplemented or not with lipids [HF with 130 g/d of oil from whole intact rapeseeds (RS) and LF with 130 g/d of sunflower oil (SO)] in a 4 x 4 Latin square design. Milk yield, milk composition, FA profile, and FA secretion were measured, as well as the expression profiles of key genes in mammary metabolism and of 8,382 genes, using a bovine oligonucleotide microarray. After 3 wk of treatment, milk, lactose, and protein yields were lower with HF-RS than with the other diets, whereas treatment had no effect on milk protein content. Milk fat content was higher with the HF-RS and LF-SO diets than with the HF and LF diets, and SO supplementation increased milk fat yield compared with the LF diet. Decreasing the forage-to-concentrate ratio from 64:36 to 43:57 had a limited effect on goat milk FA concentrations and secretions. Supplementing the LF diet with SO changed almost all the FA concentrations, including decreases in medium-chain saturated FA and large increases in trans C18:1 and C18:2 isomers (particularly trans-11 C18:1 and cis-9, trans-11 conjugated linoleic acid), without significant changes in C18:0 and cis-9 C18:1, whereas supplementing the HF diet with RS led to a strong decrease in short- and medium-chain saturated FA and a very strong increase in C18:0 and cis-9 C18:1, without significant changes in trans C18:1 and conjugated linoleic acid. Despite the decreases in milk lactose and protein yields observed with HF-RS, and despite the decrease in milk medium-chain FA and the increase in C18 FA secretion with RS or SO supplementation, none of the dietary treatments had any effect on mammary mRNA expression of the key genes involved in lactose (e.g., alpha-lactalbumin), protein (e.g., beta-casein), and lipid metabolism (e.g., lipoprotein lipase) after 3 wk of treatment. In addition, transcriptome analysis did not provide evidence of treatments inducing significant changes in the expression of specific genes in the mammary gland. However, 2-way hierarchical clustering analysis highlighted different global mammary expression profiles between diets, showing that the gene expression profiles corresponding to the same diet were gathered by common groups of genes. This experiment suggests that after 3 wk of dietary treatment, other factors, such as substrate availability for mammary metabolism, could play an important role in contributing to milk FA responses to changes in diet composition in the goat.