Project description:Neotyphodium coenophialum is an endophytic fungus that infects most tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) pastures that are commonly used in animal grazing systems in the United States. Beef cattle grazing such pastures are impaired in health and production performance, resulting in a large economic loss in US food-animal production systems. Based on clinical and biochemical blood analyte profiles, hepatic targeted gene and protein analyses, and hepatic transcriptomic profiling, microarray analysis using the WT Btau 4.0 Array (version 1.0, Affymetrix, Inc., Santa Clara, CA) was conducted to determine if grazing endophyte-infected tall fescue pastures affects pituitary gene expression profiles of growing beef steers. The specific overall hypothesis tested was that grazing high endophyte-infected pasture would alter the pituitary genomic expression profiles of the same growing steers, especially genes involved in production and secretion of prolactin, growth hormone, thyroid stimulating hormone, and adrenocorticotropic hormone. Sixteen steers were assigned to graze either a low toxic endophyte tall fescue-mixed grass (LE treatment, 5.7 ha, n = 8) or a high toxic endophyte infected tall fescue (HE treatment, 5.7 ha, n = 8) pasture located in the University of Kentucky Agricultural Research Center. All steers had ad libitum access to fresh water, an industry standard mineral-vitamin supplement, and grazed respective pastures for 89 to 105 days. Whole pituitaries were collected for RNA extraction and microarray analysis.
Project description:Neotyphodium coenophialum is an endophytic fungus that infects most tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) pastures that are commonly used in animal grazing systems in the United States. Beef cattle grazing such pastures are impaired in health and production performance, resulting in a large economic loss in US food-animal production systems. Based on the clinical symptoms and laboratory analyses of blood, it was hypothesized that such affected cattle display liver-specific changes in the expression of gene transcripts that are associated with the metabolic enzymes and transporters critical for beef health and performance. Microarray analysis using the GeneChip Bovine Genome Array (Affymetrix, Inc., Santa Clara, CA) was conducted to determine if grazing endophyte-infected tall fescue pastures affects the liver gene expression profiles of growing beef steers. Nineteen steers were assigned to graze either a low toxic endophyte tall fescue-mixed grass (LE treatment, 5.7 ha, n = 9) or a high toxic endophyte infected tall fescue (HE treatment, 5.7 ha, n = 10) pasture located in the University of Kentucky Agricultural Research Center. All steers had ad libitum access to fresh water and an industry standard mineral-vitamin supplement. 88 days grazing on pasture. Approximately 2 g of tissue from the right lobe of the liver of each steer were collected for RNA extraction and microarray analysis.
Project description:Neotyphodium coenophialum is an endophytic fungus that infects most tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) pastures that are commonly used in animal grazing systems in the United States. Beef cattle grazing such pastures are impaired in health and production performance, resulting in a large economic loss in US food-animal production systems. Based on clinical and biochemical blood analyte profiles, hepatic targeted gene and protein analyses, and hepatic transcriptomic profiling, microarray analysis using the BovGene-1_0-v1 array (Affymetrix) was conducted to determine if grazing endophyte-infected tall fescue pastures affects pituitary gene expression profiles of growing beef steers. The specific overall hypothesis tested was that grazing high endophyte-infected pasture would alter the pituitary genomic expression profiles of the same growing steers, especially genes involved in production and secretion of prolactin, growth hormone, thyroid stimulating hormone, and adrenocorticotropic hormone.
Project description:Neotyphodium coenophialum is an endophytic fungus that infects most tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) pastures that are commonly used in animal grazing systems in the United States. Beef cattle grazing such pastures are impaired in health and production performance, resulting in a large economic loss in US food-animal production systems. Based on the clinical symptoms and laboratory analyses of blood, it was hypothesized that such affected cattle display liver-specific changes in the expression of gene transcripts that are associated with the metabolic enzymes and transporters critical for beef health and performance. Microarray analysis using the GeneChip Bovine Genome Array (Affymetrix, Inc., Santa Clara, CA) was conducted to determine if grazing endophyte-infected tall fescue pastures affects the liver gene expression profiles of growing beef steers.
Project description:The goal of this study was to test the hypothesis that sodium selenite (ISe), SEL-PLEX (OSe), vs. a 1:1 blend (MIX) of ISe and OSe in a basal vitamin-mineral (VM) mix would differetianlly alter pituitary transcriptome profiles in growing beef steers commonly grazing an endophyte-infected tall fescue pasture. Predominately-Angus steers (BW = 183 ± 34 kg) were randomly selected from herds of fall-calving cows grazing E+ pasture and consuming VM mixes that contained 35 ppm Se as ISe, OSe, and MIX forms. Steers were weaned, depleted of Se for 98 d, and subjected to summer-long common grazing of an E+ pasture (0.51 ppm total ergovaline per ergovalinine; 10.1 ha). Steers were assigned (n = 8 per treatment) to the same Se-form treatments upon which they were raised. Selenium treatments were administered by daily top-dressing 85 g of VM mix onto 0.23 kg soyhulls, using in-pasture Calan gates. We collected pituitary samples and examine for changes in global expression pattern by microarray analysis.
Project description:The goal of this study was to test the hypothesis that sodium selenite (ISe), SEL-PLEX (OSe), vs. a 1:1 blend (MIX) of ISe and OSe in a basal vitamin-mineral (VM) mix would differetianlly alter hepatic transcriptome profiles in growing beef steers commonly grazing an endophyte-infected tall fescue (E+) pasture. Predominately-Angus steers (BW = 183 ± 34 kg) were randomly selected from herds of fall-calving cows grazing E+ pasture and consuming VM mixes that contained 35 ppm Se as ISe, OSe, and MIX forms. Steers were weaned, depleted of Se for 98 d, and subjected to summer-long common grazing of an E+ pasture (0.51 ppm total ergovaline per ergovalinine; 10.1 ha). Steers were assigned (n = 8 per treatment) to the same Se-form treatments upon which they were raised. Selenium treatments were administered by daily top-dressing 85 g of VM mix onto 0.23 kg soyhulls, using in-pasture Calan gates. We collected liver samples and examined for changes in global expression pattern by microarray analysis.
Project description:To test the hypothesis that average daily gain (ADG) and clinical parameters of steers grazing novel non-toxic (NTE) or toxic KY-31 (TE) endophyte-infected tall fescue would be improved by ad libitum intake of vitamin-mineral mixes (V-M) that contain 27 ppm Se as a 1:1 blend of SELPLEX:sodium selenite (MIX) vs. sodium selenite (ISe), 32 fescue-naïve beef steers depleted of Se were randomly assigned to ad libitum consumption ISe vs MIX for 35 d and fed enough of a NTE/alfalfa/grain diet to achieve 0.57 kg BW gain/d. Within Se-form treatments, 2 steers were randomly assigned to each of 4 NTE (ISe = 316 ± 31 kg, MIX = 315 ± 22 kg) or TE (ISe = 316 ± 37 kg, MIX = 314 ± 39 kg) paddocks for 84 d and had ad libitum access to their respective V-M. Steers were slaughtered over a 23-d period from day 90 to day 113 (August 27, 2019 to September 19, 2019) of the study and the left kidney removed.
Project description:To test the hypothesis that average daily gain (ADG) and clinical parameters of steers grazing novel non-toxic (NTE) or toxic KY-31 (TE) endophyte-infected tall fescue would be improved by ad libitum intake of vitamin-mineral mixes (V-M) that contain 27 ppm Se as a 1:1 blend of SELPLEX:sodium selenite (MIX) vs. sodium selenite (ISe), 32 fescue-naïve beef steers depleted of Se were randomly assigned to ad libitum consumption ISe vs MIX for 35 d and fed enough of a NTE/alfalfa/grain diet to achieve 0.57 kg BW gain/d. Within Se-form treatments, 2 steers were randomly assigned to each of 4 NTE (ISe = 316 ± 31 kg, MIX = 315 ± 22 kg) or TE (ISe = 316 ± 37 kg, MIX = 314 ± 39 kg) paddocks for 84 d and had ad libitum access to their respective V-M. Steers were slaughtered over a 23-d period from day 90 to day 113 (August 27, 2019 to September 19, 2019) of the study and the left adrenal gland removed.
Project description:The objective of our study was to assess the effect of fescue toxicosis on the overall transcriptomics profile of liver tissue on growing Angus × Simmental steers and heifers. The susceptibility was determined by the T-snip genetic tests for a total of 42 pregnant cows. At mid-gestation, these animals were randomly assigned to control group which received a based diet and fed endophyte free fescue seeds; a treatment group was fed endophyte-infected tall fescue seeds for 30 days. RNA-seq experiments were performed in liver biopsy samples, and a total of 828 differentially expressed genes were detected.