Effect of early calf-hood nutrition on the hypothalamic-pituitary axis in Holstein-Friesian bulls

An abstract of a study by English et al examining the effect of nutrition during the first 18 weeks of life on selected genes in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus and anterior pituitary in Holstein-Friesian bull calves is presented. The following genes were selected for analysis in the arcuate nucleus: Kiss1R, GPR54, GnRH, AgRP, NPY, POMC, MC4R, IGF1R, IGF1, OBR and GHSR while: LHb, FSHb, GHSR, GH1, GnRHR, IGF1 and IGF1R were selected for the anterior pituitary. UBQ and RSP9 were selected as stable reference genes. Data were analysed using mixed models methodology (PROC MIXED; SAS). For variables that were not normally distributed, λ and log transformations were used. Only one gene, GHSR was upregulated in the anterior pituitary (P < 0.05) and tended towards greater transcript abundance in the arcuate nucleus (P < 0.1) in the low compared with the high plane of nutrition calves.