Nutritional Management for the Energy Metabolism in Animals

All living organisms utilize energy to sustain their life processes, since tissue accretions and indispensable cellular events require adequate energy. A major cost of sustainable animal production is to maintain basal energy requirements such as maintaining all physiological functions. Animals require different energy formulation depending upon their stages such as pregnancy, lactation, fattening and egg formation and also basing on the environment, species, breeds, sex and age. Therefore, the balance between energy intake and utilization must be maintained in order to optimize diet formulation in a cost-effective approach and will further enhance animal productivity with minimum loss of nutrients released into the environment. The primary sources of dietary energy for animals are carbohydrates, lipids and proteins. The energies released from dietary macronutrients undergo oxidation of fatty acids, glucose, and amino acids, which are used for the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), guanosine-5'-triphosphate (GTP), cytidine triphosphate (CTP), uridine-5′-triphosphate (UTP), all these substances produced via glycolysis and mitochondrial Krebs cycle.
Our goal is to encourage the publication of articles related to energy metabolism and disorders, requirement and new methods of energy measurement for livestock in different life processes. These studies will be important to help in diet formulation and update the status of energy requirements for various transition periods of animals. Meanwhile, we are wondering about the influence of dietary nutrients on energy homeostasis and how nutritional management enhances the energy efficacy in animals. Further, mitochondria are also the major sites of energy production and are crucial for maintaining cellular energy demands in the form of ATP. Gut microbiome signaling to mitochondria has been proved to change mitochondrial metabolism. However, the interrelationship between gut microbes and host mitochondrial metabolism is still not fully illustrated. Thus, it is also important to highlight the role of gut microbe in maintaining the energy homeostasis of hosts.
This Research Topic focuses on all aspects of the research on the nutritional management for the energy metabolism in animals, and it welcomes but is not limited to, papers on the following themes:
• Investigating energy measurements and partitioning in livestock to enhance their productivity and health, and optimize the dietary formulation. (i.e. beef cattle, poultry, pigs, goats, sheep).
• Energy retention and disorders related to energy metabolism in different life processes of animals (i.e. gestation, lactation, nursery, weaning, etc).
• Use of the nutritional management in the critical windows to regulate the energy homeostasis and improve the energy disorders in animals (i.e. amino acid, fatty acid, peptide, fiber, etc).
• The influence of microbes inhabiting in animals on mitochondrial metabolism and energy homeostasis.