Impacts of Macronutrients on Gene Expression: Recent Evidence to Understand Productive and Reproductive Performance of Livestock

Abstract

In order to identify the effects of nutrients on gene expression and to assess the interactions between genes and nutrition by means of various cutting-edge technologies, the interdisciplinary branch ‘Nutrigenomics‘ was created. Therefore, nutrigenomics corresponds to the use of knowledge and techniques of nutrition, genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, epigenomics, and metabolomics to seek and explain the cross-talk between nutrition and genes in molecular level. Macronutrients are important dietary signals that control metabolic programming of cells and have important roles in maintaining cellular homeostasis by influencing specific gene expression. Recent advancements in molecular genetics studies, for instance, use of next-generation sequencing, microarray and qPCR array to investigate the expression of transcripts, genes, and miRNAs, has a crucial impact on understanding and quantitative measurement of the impact of dietary macronutrients on gene function. This review will shade a light on the interactions and mechanisms how the dietary source of macronutrients changes the expression of specific mRNA and miRNA. Furthermore, it will highlight the exciting recent findings in relation to animal performance characteristics which eventually help us to identify a dietary target to improve animal production.