Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/20406
Title: Go with the flow - biology and genetics of the lactation cycle
Contributor(s): Strucken, Eva  (author)orcid ; Laurenson, Yan  (author); Brockmann, Gudrun A (author)
Publication Date: 2015
Open Access: Yes
DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2015.00118Open Access Link
Handle Link: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/20406
Abstract: Lactation is a dynamic process, which evolved to meet dietary demands of growing offspring. At the same time, the mother's metabolism changes to meet the high requirements of nutrient supply to the offspring. Through strong artificial selection, the strain of milk production on dairy cows is often associated with impaired health and fertility. This led to the incorporation of functional traits in to breeding aims to counteract this negative association. Potentially, distributing the total quantity of milk per lactation cycle more equally over time could reduce the peak of physiological strain and improve health and fertility. During lactation many factors affect the production of milk: food intake; digestion, absorption, and transportation of nutrients; blood glucose levels; activity of cells in the mammary gland, liver, and adipose tissue; synthesis of proteins and fat in the secretory cells; and the metabolic and regulatory pathways that provide fatty acids, amino acids, and carbohydrates. Whilst the endocrine regulation and physiology of the dynamic process of milk production seems to be understood, the genetics that underlie these dynamics are still to be uncovered. Modeling of longitudinal traits and estimating the change in additive genetic variation over time has shown that the genetic contribution to the expression of a trait depends on the considered time-point. Such time-dependent studies could contribute to the discovery of missing heritability. Only very few studies have estimated exact gene and marker effects at different time-points during lactation. The most prominent gene affecting milk yield and milk fat, DGAT1, exhibits its main effects after peak production, whilst the case in genes have larger effects in early lactation. Understanding the physiological dynamics and elucidating the time-dependent genetic effects behind dynamically expressed traits will contribute to selection decisions to further improve productive and healthy breeding populations.
Publication Type: Journal Article
Source of Publication: Frontiers in Genetics, v.6, p. 1-11
Publisher: Frontiers Research Foundation
Place of Publication: Switzerland
ISSN: 1664-8021
Fields of Research (FoR) 2008: 060412 Quantitative Genetics (incl. Disease and Trait Mapping Genetics)
070202 Animal Growth and Development
Fields of Research (FoR) 2020: 310506 Gene mapping
300301 Animal growth and development
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2008: 970107 Expanding Knowledge in the Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2020: 280101 Expanding knowledge in the agricultural, food and veterinary sciences
Peer Reviewed: Yes
HERDC Category Description: C1 Refereed Article in a Scholarly Journal
Appears in Collections:Journal Article

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