Heather White, a professor of animal and dairy sciences, received USDA-NIFA funding for her project Comprehensive tissue collection from high and low feed efficient cows: elucidating tissue metabolism and fetal programming of cow and fetus through the the Animal Nutrition, Growth and Lactation program. It was among 27 projects sharing $11.4 million in funding.

Project summary (from CRIS website): Improving livestock feed efficiency (FE) is essential to sustainably feed the world. Our long-term goal is to understand tissue and whole-animal level nutrient use efficiency to improve FE in dairy cows. Critical gaps remain in understanding coordinated nutrient use across the body, the relative role of differing adipose tissue depots in metabolism and body energy change, and the impact of maternal FE on in utero development. The objectives here are to determine if nutrient metabolism is coordinated across tissues to contribute to whole-body FE, evaluate the fatty acid composition and relative metabolic activity of adipose tissue depots, and examine if genomic and metabolic differences that lead to high FE influence fetal development. Quantification of key genes and proteins in liver, muscle, subcutaneous and visceral adipose, and lymph nodes will allow for determining relative tissue metabolism in high vs. low FE cows. RNA sequencing of fetal liver and muscle will determine pathways influenced through fetal programming. We will execute these aims through a collaboration with USDA AGIL and a comprehensive tissue collection during slaughter of 80 phenotypically characterized second lactation dairy cows. This once-in-a-career sample collection opportunity will allow for analysis that would otherwise be economically and ethically prohibitive; however, as the timeline for slaughter is not flexible, it presents an urgency and time-sensitivity. Our goals align closely with the Animal Nutrition, Growth and Lactation priority, within the Animal Health and Production Program. Focus on the contribution of nutrient use efficiency will serve to further improve dairy cattle efficiency and sustainability.