Microbial and metabolomic insights into the bovine lipometabolic responses of rumen and mammary gland to zymolytic small peptide supplementation

Small peptides provide the easily utilized nitrogen for rumen microbial and promote acetate generation for milk fat synthesis. However, the impacts of peptide supplements on lipometabolic processes were still unclear. Therefore, a total of 800 multiparous dairy herds (with an average live weight of 667.6 ± 39.4 kg, an average lactation of 89.3 ± 18.8 days, and an average calving parity of 2.76 ± 0.47) were randomly allocated to the control (CON) and the small peptide (SP) supplement (100 g/day for each cow) treatments, respectively. A 35-day-long feeding procedure that includes a 7-day-long pretreatment test and a 28-day-long treatment test was followed for all cows. Dry matter intake (DMI) was recorded every day and calculated by the deviation between the supply and residue, while the daily milk production was automatically recorded through the rotary milking facilities. Milk samples were collected from each replicate on the last day, followed by the milk quality and milk lipid composition measurement. Rumen fluid samples were collected on the last day through esophageal tubing 3 h after morning feeding for the determination of the underlying mechanism of the small peptide on lipid metabolism through the measurement of rumen lipometabolic-related metabolites and rumen bacterial communities. Results indicated that dry matter intake showed an increasing trend, while milk production and the milk fat content remarkably increased after SP supplement (P < 0.05). Further detailed detection showed the mainly increased milk composition focused on monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA) and polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA). Acetate-producing microbes, such as Acetitomaculum, Bifidobacterium, Succiniclasticum, and Succinivibrio, and butyrate-producing microbes, such as Shuttleworthia and Saccharofermentans, significantly proliferated, which causatively brought the increased ruminal content of acetate, isobutyrate, and butyrate after SP supplement (P < 0.05) compared with CON. Lipometabolic metabolites such as phosphatidylcholine (PC), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), phosphatidylinositol (PI), phosphatidylserine (PS), triacylglycerol (TG), and Acetyl-CoA also significantly increased after SP supplement. In summary, SP supplements help to increase milk fat content through the proliferation of rumen bacterial communities, which provided more acetate and butyrate for milk fat synthesis combined with the promotion of ruminal lipometabolism.