PROGRAMMING OF POSTNATAL GROWTH BY PREIMPLANTATION ACTIONS OF CHOLINE

health, well-being and function of an animal depends not only on the environment it wasexposed to after birth but also on environmental conditions it experienced before birth. one such condition in cattle may be availability of choline to the preimplantation embryo. choline is a vitamin-like molecule that plays important roles in the metabolism of the cell.preliminary results indicate that exposure of bovine embryos to choline during the first 7 days of development programs fetal growth to increase birth and weaning weights.the goal of the current proposal is to test the hypothesis that increasing amounts of choline available tothe embryo developing in vitro or in vivo improves postnatal growth, feed efficiency and carcass characteristics. the experiment for objective 1 will be performed to confirm that culture of embryos in medium containing choline chloride increases birth and weaning weights and improves post-weaning growth and carcass characteristics. for objective 2, it will be tested whether feeding choline to cows around conception will increase birth and weaning weights of the resultant calves.results from objective 1 will allow confirmation of the actions of choline on the embryo, determine whether the increased body mass at birth and weaning is associated with changes in muscle development, and evaluate whether choline also improves feed efficiency and carcass characteristics. experiments for objective 2 will provide the first indication of whether modification of choline availability to the cow at insemination can yield benefits in terms of postnatal phenotype for growth.if the hypothesis is proven true, theresearch opens up new opportunities to improve the efficiency and profitability of beef production, as well as reduce the carbon footprint of the beef industry, by feeding pregnant cows to increase its offspring's growth rate.