Encouraging production of healthy fatty acids in milk
The fatty acid conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) has been shown to have beneficial health effects in humans, improving resistance to a range of diseases. CLA is found naturally in meat and dairy products, especially milk. Scientists with the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) joined a team comprising eight other research institutes aspiring to enhance the CLA content of milk. Considerable effort has already been devoted to cows, so the BIOCLA consortium turned its attention to goats. INRA began by augmenting the goats' diet with C18 unsaturated fatty acids since these have been identified as a key driver of CLA production. Subsequently, the composition of the milk in the goats' mammary glands was studied, namely the relative abundance of certain fatty acids. This provided insight into the role of various lipogenic genes, such as LPL, ACC, FAS and SCD. The results indicate that lipogenic enzymes are just one piece of a complex puzzle of mechanisms in the case of goats. A second phase of the BIOCLA research involved an in vitro approach using mammary explants from goats. The explants were treated with several different media in the laboratory and then subjected to a number of chemical analyses. The outcome was similar to that of the in vivo experiments, that is, the influence of fatty acid exposure on CLA production in goats is significantly less than that for cows. INRA and its BIOCLA partners continue to examine the data in the hopes of further unravelling the CLA mystery.
