Background: Weaning is a major challenge to the digestive system of the young pig, where the diet changes from highly digestible sow’s milk rich in protein and fat before weaning to a more complex mainly plant based dry feed with a lower nutrient digestibility after weaning. This transition and change of nutrient flow in the gut leads to profound changes in the microflora, and an increased risk of developing PWD.
The metabolome is a collection of endogenous metabolites, products of the metabolism, metabolites originating from microbial fermentation as well as exogenous metabolites originating from the feed (xenobiotics). Metabolomics is the measurement of the metabolome in biological samples like urine. Changes in the metabolome can reflect altered metabolic pathways or changes in the microflora or its activity. Investigating the urinary metabolome during the period around weaning may provide information on the changes in metabolism imposed by the dietary change at weaning. Furthermore, excretion of xenobiotics that originate from the diet may be a sign that the piglet has consumed dry feed prior to weaning. Finally, microbial metabolites in urine may indicate microbial changes.
The overall aim of the present project is to investigate how the urinary metabolome changes at weaning. Additional research questions are
1) can feed intake prior to weaning be assessed and
2) does the urinary metabolome differ between dietary treatments after weaning.
Activities: An experiment has been performed with 40 litters during the period from birth to two weeks postweaning. The piglets were provided dry feed, however, as a negative control, a group of piglets were not provided feed prior to weaning. After weaning, one of the four experimental diets were fed. Piglets were euthanised 7 days prior to weaning, at the day of weaning, 5 days post-weaning, and 14 days post-weaning. Urine samples were collected from the bladder. The urine samples will be analysed in this thesis project using a non-targeted liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) approach. Following, data has to be preprocessed prior to multivariate analysis and important metabolite will be identified using online databases.
To be decided in agreement with the supervisor.
Lab work at Department of Animal- and Veterinary Sciences, AU Viborg - Forskningscenter Foulum, DK-8830 Tjele. Possibility to do office work in Aarhus. Private horse stables for sample collection.
45-60 ECTS.
The student should be interested in laboratory work as well as extensive data processing using various software tools as well as internet-based databases.
