Vitamin and mineral supplementation to gestating beef heifers: Fetal physiology and metabolic programming.

Vitamins and minerals have key roles in hormone production and action, enzyme activity, tissue synthesis, oxygen transport, and energy production. These micronutrients are efficiently transferred from the dam to the fetus during gestation to be partitioned for metabolic use and stored as postnatal mineral reserves. Maternal nutrient intake is one of the main factors that influence the availability of vitamins and minerals to the fetus. Thus, an inadequate supply of these critical nutrients can have a long-lasting impact on offspring growth and health. Evidence suggests that biological processes regulating normal growth, development, and nutrient utilization are programmed in utero, even during the earliest developmental stages. Therefore, there is a critical need to evaluate the effects of micronutrient supplementation during gestation on fetal physiology and metabolic programming. Our research group has developed research models examining the impact of maternal vitamin and mineral supplementation (VTM, supplemented vs. NoVTM, not supplemented) during the periconceptual period or throughout gestation in beef heifers. A metabolomic analysis revealed that metabolites in the oxidative phosphorylation pathway were more abundant in the liver of fetuses from VTM than NoVTM dams, suggesting that a greater supply of micronutrients during the periconceptual period and first trimester of pregnancy may positively modulate mitochondrial energy metabolism in offspring. These changes in the abundance of metabolites suggested physiological adaptations to meet fetal metabolic needs. Further, high-resolution respirometry analysis revealed greater efficiency of energy utilization in small intestinal samples of neonatal calves from VTM dams. In fact, VTM offspring were heavier from weaning to breeding phase than NoVTM offspring, suggesting that maternal nutrition affects physiological mechanisms in utero that modulate offspring energetics and efficiency of nutrient utilization in the postnatal period. Furthermore, we reported increased concentrations of histidine, aspartate, and 12 out of 14 neutral amino acids in the allantoic fluid of VTM-supplemented dams. Finally, genes involved with amino acid transport in fetal liver were upregulated in response to VTM supplementation, highlighting the intricate relationship between maternal and fetal nutrition. Vitamin and mineral supplementation were also associated with changes in gene expression, biological processes and pathways in placental tissue at d 83 of gestation. We observed an upregulation of genes in the calcium signaling and cyclic guanosine monophosphate (CGMP)-PKG signaling pathways in response to micronutrient supplementation. Calciummediated systems may modulate cell proliferation and steroidogenic activity in bovine placentomes, while CGMP-PKG plays a key role in vascular homeostasis. Placental blood vessel vascularity at term was indeed increased in heifers supplemented throughout gestation, emphasizing the importance of micronutrient supplementation beyond early pregnancy. Altogether, our findings suggest that vitamin and mineral supplementation in the periconceptual period and during gestation play a pivotal role in fetal metabolic programming with consequences extending to the postnatal period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]