ARS | Publication request: ACUTE EXPERIMENTAL MASTITIS PERTURBS PLASMA MACROMINERAL AND ALPHA-TOCOPHEROL CONCENTRATIONS IN EARLY-LACTATION DAIRY COWS

Submitted to: American Dairy Science Association Abstracts
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: July 25, 2005
Publication Date: July 25, 2005
Citation: Waldron, M.R., Nonnecke, B.J., Horst, R.L., Kulick, A.E., Overton, T.R. 2005. Acute experimental mastitis perturbs plasma macromineral and alpha-tocopherol concentrations in early-lactation dairy cows [abstract]. 2005 Annual Meeting American Dairy Science Association-American Society of Animal Science-Canadian Society for Animal Science. p. 94.

Technical Abstract: Twenty Holstein cows in early lactation (7 days in milk) were administered 100 ug of Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide (LPS) dissolved in 10 ml sterile 0.9% NaCl saline (TRT, n = 10) or 10 ml sterile saline absent LPS (CTL, n = 10) into both right mammary quarters. The hypothesis that acute experimental mastitis would have negative impacts on plasma macromineral and vitamin concentrations that might be important toward the development of metabolic disorders was tested. The CTL cows were pair-fed with an individual TRT cow to account for potential differences in feed intake due to TRT. The TRT cows displayed productive, clinical, and physiological signs of moderate to severe inflammation, whereas CTL cows displayed no signs of immune activation. Relative to the CTL cows, the TRT cows displayed marked decreases in plasma calcium (treatment by time effect, P less than 0.01) and phosphorus (treatment by time effect, P less than 0.01) and a significant increase in plasma magnesium (treatment by time effect, P less than 0.01) concentrations over time following intramammary infusion. Interestingly, the decrease in plasma phosphorus occurred despite very low pretreatment plasma phosphorus concentrations (2.70 +/- 0.26 mg/dl). There were no effects of TRT (P more than 0.20) on plasma 1,25-(OH)2 vitamin D3 (87.8 vs. 81.6, SE = 6.5 for TRT and CTL, respectively) or retinol (50.8 vs. 48.0, SE = 1.6 for TRT and CTL, respectively) concentrations; however, plasma alpha-tocopherol concentration (459 vs. 514, SE = 16 for TRT and CTL, respectively) was decreased by TRT (treatment effect, P less than 0.05). Acute experimental mastitis altered plasma concentrations of macrominerals and alpha-tocopherol in this study. These data suggest that immune activation during cases of natural bovine mastitis may be an important factor for metabolic health in early-lactation dairy cows.