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In feed manufacturing, the need for an effective combination of ingredients to produce a complete feed for animals is well known. However, limited quantitative data illustrate the effect of low homogeneity on the performance of animals. This study was conducted to determine the coefficient of variation (CV) of feed mixtures produced with different mixing times and the effects of these feeds with varying homogeneity consumed by 1-40-day-old broilers on their feed intake, body weight gain, feed conversion, mortality, and body weight uniformity. The mixing times used were 30, 60, 90, and 120 s, and the CV obtained from the feeds ranged from 49.5% to 5.4%. A linear decrease was observed in the feed CV with increasing mixing time, but sometimes, a longer mixing time did not present the lowest CV. The influence of the lack of feed homogeneity on the performance of broilers was mainly observed in body weight gain and, in some cases, in feed conversion. The effects on feed intake were more consistent for broilers older than 22 days, increasing body weight gain without affecting feed conversion. Our results suggest that feeds with CVs up to 22.6% had no adverse effects on the performance of broilers older than 12 days, and the lack of uniformity in broiler body weight was not influenced by feed homogeneity., Competing Interests: None, (© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Fe-S clusters are cofactors that participate in diverse and essential biological processes. Mitochondria contain a complete machinery for Fe-S cluster assembly. Cysteine desulfurase (Nfs1) is required generation of a form of activated sulfur and is essential for the initial Fe-S cluster assembly step. Using mass-spectometry we identified proteins that were copurified with Nfs1 using a pull-down strategy, including a novel protein kinase. Furthermore, we were able to identify phosphorylation sites on the Nfs1 protein. These data and analyses support the research article "Cysteine desulfurase is regulated by phosphorylation of Nfs1 in yeast mitochondria" by Rocha et al. (in press) [1].