Molecular Nutrition: Methods, Advances, and Practical Applications to Improve Health and Performance of Livestock and Pets

Dear Colleagues,

Molecular nutrition is a relatively new branch of research in livestock with great potential to face the challenges of improving the efficiency of food production and animal health ahead of us. The research into molecular nutrition appears to face a challenge in livestock science, where immediate practical applications are expected. Molecular studies can take several years before any practical application can be developed. Classical approaches to nutritional science in livestock have allowed us to make tremendous progress to the point where we can feed our herds with high accuracy; however, further advances require us to go deeper and understand the intricate and complex molecular crosstalk that is happening inside the cells and between cells (both near and far). Fortunately, we are in an era where we can benefit from the tremendous technological advances—such as RNA sequencing, gene editing (e.g., CRISPR-Cas9), and bioinformatics—that are essential to stepping into the abyss of the molecular relationships that allow life in an organism and allow the organism to respond harmoniously (or not) to molecules coming from its diet. We are also in the era of personalized medicine and personalized diets. This implies the necessity to account for and valorize the diversity among organisms and use such diversity to maximize the effect of the diet. For this reason, the use of technologies such as DNA sequencing and techniques to study the epigenome are also essential.

The aim of this Special Issue is to capture the advances in molecular nutrition in livestock and pets encompassing the development of new methods (e.g., techniques, cell lines, or protocols) and studies performed in vitro, ex vivo, in vivo or in silico to investigate the role of dietary molecules or to use the molecular effects of these to improve the performance of animals and their response to health problems.

A/Prof. Dr. Massimo Bionaz
Guest Editor

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• molecular nutrition
• nutrigenomics
• epigenenomics
• livestock
• pets