Omics Applications in Animal Nutrition

Dear Colleagues,

The animal production industry worldwide continues to experience formidable challenges, including, inter alia, high costs of conventional feed ingredients, infections by antimicrobial-resistant pathogens and parasites, environmental heat stress and (myco)toxins, antinutritional factors, undernutrition, high stocking densities, and high incidences of obesity and muscular–skeletal abnormalities, especially in broiler chickens. To minimize feed costs, animal nutritionists and producers have sought locally abundant alternative feed resources and agro-industrial by-products as nutrient sources. Unfortunately, most, if not all, these alternative feed resources are bedevilled by antinutritional factors and noxious chemicals that impair the digestibility of nutrients in the gut and/or compromise the health and productivity of animals. Also, most of the above-cited stressors generally induce cellular oxidative stress and inflammation, leading to compromised health and feed conversion efficiency in animals as well as the quality of their products (i.e., meat, milk, eggs, and hair fibre). Consequently, animal nutritionists and producers have sought to attenuate the detrimental effects of these stressors mainly through dietary interventions, including administration of synthetic and natural antioxidants, phytogenics and bioactive (phytochemical) substances, nanoparticles, and other functional compounds. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the deleterious effects of the stressors and the ameliorating attributes of antioxidants, phytogenics, and functional bioactive compounds remain largely unknown. Recent technological developments in the form of cutting-edge “omics” [mainly (meta)genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, lipidomics, and metabolomics] and bioinformatics techniques offer the opportunity to comprehensively and systematically unravel the complex relationships between dietary nutraceuticals and metabolism and to elucidate the functional qualities of nutraceuticals and characterize the bioactive components in animal feeds, cells, tissues, organs, and biosystems. The application of these state-of-the-art technologies can enhance our understanding of the biological processes and pathways (i.e., gene expressions, proteins, lipids, and various metabolites) underpinning animal responses and traits.

This Special Issue, therefore, invites original and review manuscripts that address any aspect of the application of the “omics” technologies in animal nutrition, metabolism, and nutritional biochemistry of farm and game animals. Any studies that involve measurements using metagenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, lipidomics, metabolomics (including non-targeted metabolomics approaches), epigenomics, and nutrigenomics to elucidate the influence of dietary nutraceuticals on the expression of genes regulating feed intake; growth; feed conversion efficiency; and the quality of meat, milk, eggs, hair fibre, bones, and other tissues are most welcome.

Dr. Doctor Mziwenkosi Nhlanhla Mthiyane
Guest Editor

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• animal nutrition
• nutraceuticals
• metabolism
• metagenomics
• transcriptomics
• proteomics
• lipidomics
• metabolomics
• epigenomics
• nutrigenomics