Filling gaps in animal welfare assessment through metabolomics

Frontiers in Veterinary Science

Veterinary Science

Emanuela Zanardi¹  Maria Olga Varr๠ Sergio Ghidini¹  Maria Pia Fabrile¹  Adriana Ianieri¹  Mauro Conter² 

[1] Department of Food and Drug, University of Parma, Parma, Italy;Department of Veterinary Science, University of Parma, Parma, Italy;

关键词: Five Domains model;    biomarkers;    metabolomics workflow;    NMR-based metabolomics;    HRMS-based metabolomics;    animal-based measures;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fvets.2023.1129741

 received in 2022-12-22, accepted in 2023-02-09,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Sustainability has become a central issue in Italian livestock systems driving food business operators to adopt high standards of production concerning animal husbandry conditions. Meat sector is largely involved in this ecological transition with the introduction of new label claims concerning the defense of animal welfare (AW). These new guarantees referred to AW provision require new tools for the purpose of authenticity and traceability to assure meat supply chain integrity. Over the years, European Union (EU) Regulations, national, and international initiatives proposed provisions and guidelines for assuring AW introducing requirements to be complied with and providing tools based on scoring systems for a proper animal status assessment. However, the comprehensive and objective assessment of the AW status remains challenging. In this regard, phenotypic insights at molecular level may be investigated by metabolomics, one of the most recent high-throughput omics techniques. Recent advances in analytical and bioinformatic technologies have led to the identification of relevant biomarkers involved in complex clinical phenotypes of diverse biological systems suggesting that metabolomics is a key tool for biomarker discovery. In the present review, the Five Domains model has been employed as a vademecum describing AW. Starting from the individual Domains—nutrition (I), environment (II), health (III), behavior (IV), and mental state (V)—applications and advances of metabolomics related to AW setting aimed at investigating phenotypic outcomes on molecular scale and elucidating the biological routes most perturbed from external solicitations, are reviewed. Strengths and weaknesses of the current state-of-art are highlighted, and new frontiers to be explored for AW assessment throughout the metabolomics approach are argued. Moreover, a detailed description of metabolomics workflow is provided to understand dos and don'ts at experimental level to pursue effective results. Combining the demand for new assessment tools and meat market trends, a new cross-strategy is proposed as the promising combo for the future of AW assessment.

【 授权许可】

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Copyright © 2023 Fabrile, Ghidini, Conter, Varrà, Ianieri and Zanardi.