Age-related changes in plasma leptin from early growing to late finishing stages of castrated Holstein steers: Utilizing multi-species leptin RIA

Abstract

This experiment was performed to understand the changes in plasma leptin in association with plasma IGF-1, body weight and ADG from early growing to late finishing stages of Holstein steers. Blood collection was performed by arterial vein puncture at selected monthly ages of 1 (54 kg), 2.6 (103 kg), 7.2 (205 kg), 13.5 (314 kg), 16.9 (414 kg), 22.2 (550 kg), 24.9 (626 kg) and 27.4 months (695 kg). The blood was analyzed for leptin using the multi-species leptin RIA with recombinant bovine leptin (rbleptin) as standard, plasma IGF-1 was also measured using RIA. Against the standard rbleptin, the multi-species Leptin RIA system's sensitivity, cross reactivity, slope and recovery of 41.0 ng/ml rbleptin in plasma were 4.9 ng/ml, 11.22%, -1.396 and 97.8%, respectively. Plasma leptin measured were more than 5.0 ng/ml, which enable multi-species RIA system to investigate plasma leptin in normal growing steers. Body weight resulted to a highly significant second-degree polynomial relationship with plasma leptin (q=0.54, p<0.0001) and plasma IGF-1 (q=0.44, p<0.0001) from 1 to 27.4 monthly ages. However, the second-degree polynomial curve of plasma leptin and IGF-1 differs showing a concave and convex curvilinear relationship, respectively. ADG was not significantly associated to plasma leptin (r=0.06, p>0.05) and plasma IGF=I (r=0.06, p>0.05) from 1 to 27.4 monthly ages. Low coefficient, but significant associated increase of plasma leptin and IGF-1 (r=0.12, p<0.008) from 1 to 27.4 months was observed. The uncoordinated increases of plasma IGF-1 at growing and plasma leptin at fattening period, may indicate (1) indirect involvement of endogenous IGF-1 on leptin secretion, and (2) IGF-1 level may signify lean and bone accretion while plasma leptin may mirror body fatness across the monthly ages of Holstein steers.