Plasma biomarkers for residual feed intake prediction in beef bulls.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2-23-2026
Publication Title
Translational animal science
Abstract
Residual feed intake (RFI) is a measure of feed efficiency (FE) independent of growth and body weight (BW), calculated as the difference between actual and expected feed intake (FI) based on mean metabolic weight (MW) and weight gain. We hypothesized that bulls with contrasting RFI differ in plasma concentration of different compounds. RFI was evaluated in 302 bulls from 3 different ranches. After adaptation, bulls consumed the same diet for 56 d, individual FI was daily recorded, BW was measured every 2 weeks, and blood samples were taken at d 0 and 56. The bulls were ranked as low RFI (LRFI) and high RFI (HRFI), and the top and bottom 30 were used for metabolomic, hormone, and isotope analysis. Multivariate and pathway analysis were conducted with MetaboAnalyst, and univariate analysis was conducted with SAS using Mixed procedures. Additionally, for Biomarker analysis, Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves were constructed with MetaboAnalyst. Sparse Partial Least Squares-Discriminant Analysis (sPLSDA) showed partial cluster separation evidenced by acceptable R
Volume
10
First Page
10:txag020
Recommended Citation
Venturini M, Heredia D, López Duarte MC, Joyce K, Ruiz-Moreno M, Tarnonsky F et al Ashrafi N, Graham S] Plasma biomarkers for residual feed intake prediction in beef bulls. Transl Anim Sci. 2026 Feb 23;10:txag020. doi: 10.1093/tas/txag020. PMID: 41836888
DOI
10.1093/tas/txag020
ISSN
2573-2102
PubMed ID
41836888