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Effect of environmental temperature on brown adipose tissue development in the neonatal lamb

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2018

C. J. Darby ,
S. van de Waal ,
M. A. Lomax  and
M. E. Symonds
C. J. Darby
Affiliation:
Department of Biochemistry and Physiology, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 2AJ
S. van de Waal
Affiliation:
Department of Biochemistry and Physiology, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 2AJ
M. A. Lomax
Affiliation:
Department of Biochemistry and Physiology, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 2AJ
M. E. Symonds
Affiliation:
Department of Biochemistry and Physiology, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 2AJ
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Extract

A major financial and welfare problem is the loss of 1 to 4 million lambs annually in the United Kingdom (Slee, 1979) with many of these deaths being caused by failure of the lamb to maintain normal thermoregulatory responses in the cold. This may be associated with a change in the response to cold exposure from non-shivering thermogenesis (NST) to shivering thermogenesis (ST) as brown adipose tissue (BAT) is replaced by white adipose tissue over the first 2 weeks of life in the lamb (Symonds, Andrews and Johnson, 1989).

It has been shown that environmental temperature can affect BAT development in the lamb (Gemmel, Bell and Alexander, 1972) and calf (Casteilla, Champigny, Bouilland, Robelin and Riquier, 1989) but it is not known what effect this has on the thermogenic capacity of BAT or how it may alter the ability of the lamb to thermoregulate.

This study investigated the effect of artificially rearing lambs at warm or cold ambient temperatures on the thermogenic capacity of BAT and the extent to which metabolic rate and the ability to respond to warm and cold challenges was altered by these treatments over the first 9 days of life.

Type
Abstracts of posters
Information
BSAP Occasional Publication , Volume 15 , 1992 , pp. 172 - 173
Copyright
Copyright © British Society of Animal Production 1992

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References

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