Fettsäuren in der Milch, ihre Biosynthese und mögliche Verwendung als Biomarker

Abstract

Fatty acids in milk, their biosynthesis and potential use as a biomarker

Milk fat contributes significantly to the nutritional value of milk and products as well as its organoleptic or processing properties.

Understanding the regulation of milk fat synthesis in dairy cows is of central importance for the use of milk-fat ingredients as specific biomarkers for the lactating animal and its feeding, including the development of strategies to further improve the nutritional value of milk.

In milk are included more than 400 different fatty acids (FA). This FA have different sources.

The proportion of these different FA-sources in the milk fat formation varies with diet, energy status of the cow and genetic predisposition (breed), respectively.

Milk fat contains many different and sometimes very specific FA; due to the microbial activity of ruminal microbiome in animal (host). These include also odd and branched FA mainly microbial origin (OBCFA).

The high diversity and specificity of the FA in the milk of ruminants might be used (in the future) as a biomarker for capturing feeding practices (especially fresh grass proportion in diet), for the evaluation of ruminal health or for the individual prediction the CH₄ emissions of lactating ruminant animals, or for the quantification of the intake of milk and products to the consumer and thus in human nutrition.

We are at the beginning to understand the host of information provided by milk fatty acids.

Routine detection of FS-profile of milk within the milk recording (MLP) should accepted as an innovative development in the milk production; it should therefore be promoted in future.

Keywords: milk, fatty acids, biomarkers, ruminants