We are excited to share our latest research, published in the Journal of Dairy Science, titled:

Differences in amino acid and fatty acid metabolism contribute to variability in dairy cattle feed efficiency

Authors: Jayasimha R. Daddam, Mounica Sura, Efstathios Sarmikasoglou, Ghayyoor Ahmad, Sarah Naughton, Morgan Mills, Heather M. White, Michael VandeHaar, and Zheng Zhou.

https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2025-26468 

Feed efficiency is a cornerstone of sustainable dairy production. In this study, we examined metabolic differences between high-efficiency and low-efficiency Holstein cows using liver proteomics and plasma amino acid profiling. Our results show that cows with superior feed efficiency exhibit enhanced fatty acid oxidation and amino acid metabolism in the liver, enabling them to maintain milk production with significantly lower feed intake. These findings provide fundamental knowledge about the metabolic basis of feed efficiency, which can inform future strategies to improve efficiency and reduce environmental impact.

This work would not have been possible without our outstanding collaborators. We especially thank Dr. Michael VandeHaar’s team for leading the feed efficiency animal experiments and for their critical effort in accurately determining the residual feed intake (RFI) for all cows — with special thanks to Sarah Naughton, Morgan Mills, Efstathios Sarmikasoglou, and Dr. VandeHaar.

We also thank both the VandeHaar team and our lab for their hard work during biopsies — with Ghayyoor Ahmad performing the biopsies, and Mounica Sura and Jayasimha Daddam assisting alongside the VandeHaar group.

A special thank you to Dr. Heather White for making this project happen and for leading this multi-institution effort over the past four years. More publications are on the way from both her team at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and our team at Michigan State University.

This study was supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (Agriculture and Food Research Initiative competitive grant no. 2022-67015-36650), the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (grant no. RC109491), Hatch Multistate/McIntire-Stennis Programmatic Funding from Michigan State University AgBioResearch, and the Michigan Alliance for Animal Agriculture (award AA21-177 and AA23-008). We also gratefully acknowledge the dedicated staff at the Michigan State University Dairy Cattle Teaching and Research Center for their invaluable support.