Proceeding of Veterinary and Animal Science Days 2017, 6th- 8th June, Milan, Italy 
 

HAF © 2013 

Vol. IV, No. 1s   ISSN: 2283-3927 

   

 

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Keywords 

Transition goats, Fatty acid, 

Inflammation, Immune response 

 

CORRESPONDING AUTHOR 

Greta Farina 

greta.farina@unimi.it 

 

JOURNAL HOME PAGE 

riviste.unimi.it/index.php/haf 

Abstract 

As a new perspective in controlling cellular pathways, the aim of the trial was to investigate the 

expression of miRNA implicated in adipogenesis and metabolic and endocrine functions in 

periparturient dairy goat fed saturated or unsaturated fatty acids. Hepatic and adipose tissue samples 

were obtained from twenty-three second-parity twins-diagnosed alpine dairy goats were fed either 

calcium stearate (ST, n:7), fish oil (FO, n:8) or a control diet without any fat supplement (C, n:8). 

Dietary treatments lasted from one week before (30g/head/d of fatty acids) to three weeks after 

kidding (50g/head/d of fatty acids). ST provided 26% C16:0 and 69.4% C18:0 while FO provided 10.4% 

EPA and 7.8% DHA. The expression of miR-26b and 155 (adipose infiltration of immune cells), miR-99a, 

145 and 221 (inflammation and lipolysis) and miR-143 and 378 (pro-adipogenic function) was performed 

by RT-PCR on hepatic and adipose biopsies collected on day -7 and 7 and 21 from kidding. Data were 

statistically analyzed by MIXED and GLM procedures of SAS. No diet effect was found for all the 

miRNA considered, but a significant effect of time for miR-155 (P= 0.028) and a tendency for miR-221 

(P=0.083) were found with increased values from -7 to +21d. In particular, significant higher miR-155 

expression (P<0.01) from -7 to 7d (-0.17 and 0.27, respectively) proved an inflammatory status in the 

first week after kidding in all the groups. Obtained results for both miRNA-155 and miRNA-221 over the 

time copes with our previous findings on metabolic, productive parameters and mRNA expression of 

genes related to lipid metabolism and inflammatory response (Farina et al., 2016). These outcomes 

consolidate the hypothesis that lipogenesis takes place in dairy goat in the two weeks around calving, 

but it is reduced when compared to dairy cow (Khan et al., 2013). 
 

References 

Farina, G., Agazzi, A., Invernizzi, G., Campagnoli, A., Loor, J.J., and Savoini, G., 2016. Transcriptional regulation of lipid 
metabolism and inflammation in transition dairy goats by fish oil and stearate. International Journal of Health, 
Animal Science and Food Safety. 3 (1s) 

Khan, M. J., Hosseini, A., Burrell, S., Rocco, S.M., McNamara, J.P.,and Loor, J.J. 2013. Change in subcutaneous adipose 
tissue metabolism and gene network expression during the transition period in dairy cows, including differences 
due to sire genetic merit. Journal of Dairy Science. 96, 2171–2182 

Can lipid supplementation modulate  

inflammatory state and immune response  

in periparturient goats?  

A case study on hepatic and adipose  

miRNA expression 

Greta Farina1*, Alessandro Agazzi1, Guido Invernizzi1,  

Giovanni Savoini1, J.J. Loor2 

 

1University of Milan, Department of Health, Animal Science and Food Safety, Italy  

2University of Illinois, Department of Animal Sciences, Urbana 

 

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en