Anna Bassols

Autonomous University of Barcelona | UAB · Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Obesity is a risk factor for highly prevalent age-related neurodegenerative diseases, the pathogenesis of whichinvolves mitochondrial dysfunction and protein oxidative damage. Lipoxidation, driven by high levels of peroxidizable unsaturated fatty acids and low antioxidant protection of the brain, stands out as a significant risk factor. To gain inf...

Background The concentration of biomarkers in saliva could be influenced by several factors not related to the specific condition under analyses, which should be considered for proper clinical interpretation. In the present study, the circadian rhythm of C-reactive protein (CRP), haptoglobin (Hp), Pig-MAP, S100A12, Cu, Zn, Adenosine deaminase (ADA)...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of colostrum consumption and feed restriction on biomarkers of stress, nutritional and health status, gut functionality, and behavior in male dairy beef calves being marketed and transported. A total of 82 male Holstein calves [42 ± 1.2 kg of body weight and 14 ± 0.9 d of age] were used to study the...

Background: The determination of iCa and iMg is important in veterinary medicine, but their immediate determination in whole blood is not always possible. Their stability in other sample types and the existence of interferences must be evaluated before its use. Objectives: We aimed to analyze the effects of storage time on the stability of iCa,...

The major acute phase proteins (APPs) in cattle are haptoglobin (Hp) and serum amyloid A (SAA), and in swine, are Hp, SAA, C‐reactive protein (CRP), and Pig major acute phase protein (Pig‐MAP). Many methodologic assays are presently available to measure these parameters, which are still being improved to increase their specificity, sensitivity, use...

Background: Good strategical programs are required for the early detection of disease even in the absence of evident clinical signs, which is crucial in satisfying animal welfare. Haptoglobin (Hp) and inter-α-trypsin inhibitor heavy chain H4 (ITIH4) are acute phase proteins and good biomarkers of early inflammation in cattle, with plasma levels th...

Colostrum consumption is crucial for passive immunization and development of the newborn calf. However, the incidence on failed transfer of passive immunity in male calves destined to dairy-beef production remains high to date. In addition, the lack of an automated procedure to validate the immunization status upon arrival at rearing facilities in...

Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) and later obesity and metabolic disorders have classically been associated with maternal malnutrition, but most cases of IUGR are related to placental insufficiency. The current study, using a swine model for IUGR and obesity, aimed to determine the interaction of birth weight (categorized as low birth weight...

Male Holstein calves (n = 80; 42.7 ± 1.44 kg and 14.2 ± 0.81 days of age) were used to evaluate the effects of colostrum consumption and feed restriction on gut functionality in calves subjected to an assembly center simulation (ACS). Well-colostrated (WC) calves received 4L of colostrum within the first 2h after birth and 2L of colostrum in the ne...

Male Holstein calves (n = 80; 42.7 ± 1.44 kg and 14.2 ± 0.81 days of age) were used to evaluate the effects of colostrum consumption and feed restriction on performance, energy balance (serum concentration of BHB and NEFA), and behavior on calves marketed and transported during 19h. Well-colostrated (WC) calves received 4L of colostrum within the f...

Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR) hinders the correct growth of the fetus during pregnancy due to the lack of oxygen or nutrients. The developing fetus gives priority to brain development (“brain sparing”), but the risk exists of neurological and cognitive deficits at short or long term. On the other hand, diets rich in fat exert pernicious ef...

Supplementation of a mother’s diet with antioxidants such as hydroxytyrosol (HTX) has been proposed to ameliorate the adverse phenotypes of foetuses affected by intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR). Our previous studies showed, in a porcine model of IUGR, an effect of maternal HTX supplementation on the neurotransmitter profile of several brain a...

Magnesium disorders in horses with gastrointestinal disorders or systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) are scarcely characterized. The purpose of the study was to explore the association of magnesium disorders with diagnosis, SIRS and mortality in horses admitted to a referral equine hospital. In total, 75 sick horses were included in an o...

There is a growing concern about the genetic determinism of resilience and its possible implementation in breeding programs. The objective of our study was to elaborate novel resilience indicators in growing pigs based on the deviation from the expected growth curve and the increment of the acute-phase protein haptoglobin (HP) after applying a comm...

Eighty-two newborn unweaned Holstein bull calves (43.3 ± 0.86 kg) were used to evaluate the effect of the amount of colostrum feeding on performance and potential colostrum feeding on serum biomarkers. Immediately after calves were born, calves were randomly distributed to well colostrated treatment (WC; n = 49) where calves were fed 4 L of colostr...

Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) refers to poor growth of a fetus during pregnancy due to deficient maternal nutrition or oxygen supply. Supplementation of a mother’s diet with antioxidants, such as hydroxytyrosol (HTX), has been proposed to ameliorate the adverse phenotypes of IUGR. In the present study, sows were treated daily with or witho...

Jenny shows a large endometrial reaction after semen influx to the uterus with a large amount of polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN) migrating into the uterine lumen. PMN act as a sperm selection mechanism through phagocytosis and NETosis (DNA extrudes and, together with proteins, trap spermatozoa). While a reduced percentage of spermatozoa are pha...

Supplementation of a mother’s diet with antioxidants, such as hydroxytyrosol (HTX), has been proposed to ameliorate the adverse phenotypes of fetuses at risk of intrauterine growth restriction. In the present study, sows were treated daily with or without 1.5 mg of HTX per kilogram of feed from day 35 of pregnancy (at 30% of total gestational perio...

The consequences of supplementing Lys, Met, and Thr in milk replacers (MR) for calves have been widely studied, but scarce information exists about potential roles of other AA (whether essential or not). The effects on growth performance of supplementation of 4 different AA combinations in a mixed ration (25.4% crude protein and 20.3% fat) based on...

In human’s serum citrulline concentration (SCC) have been proposed as a biomarker of small intestinal absorption. We hypothesize that the stress and feed restriction that unweaned calves suffer during transport impairs gut functionality reducing SCC. The aim of this study was to evaluate if road transport hours and adaptation period after arrival w...

Environmental enrichment in porcine farms improves animal welfare and leads to better public acceptance. To better understand the neurological mechanisms of the response to environmental enrichment, monoaminergic neurotransmitters were quantified in several brain areas from pigs after eight weeks of housing in barren or enriched conditions. Further...

The pig is a valuable animal model to study obesity in humans due to the physiological similarity between humans and pigs in terms of digestive and associated metabolic processes. The dietary use of vegetal protein, probiotics and omega-3 fatty acids is recommended to control weight gain and to fight obesity-associated metabolic disorders. Likewise...

Tryptophan is a precursor of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that participates in the control of the affective state of an animal. We hypothesized that Trp supplementation could help dairy calves to cope with weaning stress. Twenty-seven Holstein male calves (48 ± 0.8 d old; 82 ± 2.6 kg of body weight) were used to evaluate the effects of Trp supplem...

In this paper, a differential microfluidic sensor and comparator based on a pair of microstrip lines loaded with dumbbell-shaped defected ground structure resonators is applied to the characterization of electrolyte concentration in samples of horse urine. Since variations in the total electrolyte content in urine may be indicative of certain patho...

In pre-weaning calves, both leucine and threonine play important roles in growth and muscle metabolism. In this study, metabolomics, proteomics and clinical chemistry were used to assess the effects of leucine and threonine supplementation added to milk replacer on 14 newborn Holstein male calves: 7 were fed a control diet (Ctrl) and 7 were fed the...

While the removal of seminal plasma is a routine practice prior to equine sperm cryopreservation, this fluid contains the main source of antioxidant enzymes able to scavenge these reactive oxygen species. Therefore, stallion seminal plasma components may have an impact on ejaculate freezability. Against this background, this study was designed to i...

The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential benefits of supplementing glutamic acid in milk replacers (MR) with respect to calf performance, intestinal permeability, and metabolism. Sixty Holstein male calves (3 ± 1.3 d old and 45 ± 5.9 kg body weight) were individually housed and fed a control MR without AA supplementation (24.8% cru...

This study investigated whether the activities of four antioxidant enzymes present in jackass seminal plasma (SP), superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and glutathione peroxidase (GPX) and glutathione reductase (GSR), are related to the sperm ability to withstand cryopreservation. Eighteen ejaculates from 16 healthy jackasses were collected a...

This study compared the activities of four antioxidant enzymes (superoxide dismutase, SOD; catalase, CAT; glutathione peroxidase, GPX; and glutathione reductase, GSR) in the seminal plasma of stallions and jackasses. Eighteen stallion ejaculates and 24 jack ejaculates were collected through an artificial vagina. Seminal plasma was obtained by sever...

Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) is characterized by reduced growth and weight of the foetus, mainly due to the lack of nutrients and oxygen. Animals affected by IUGR show changes in specific brain areas and several neuronal processes. Female offspring affected by IUGR show increased survival and development compared to males. The objective o...

Having sensitive serum biomarkers able to determine the structural changes of the small intestine suffering from bacterial digestive diseases could be a valuable tool particularly in piglets at weaning, when intestinal infections are highly prevalent. We evaluated the usefulness of three inflammatory and gut-wall-integrity biomarkers to assess the...

The purpose of the present study is to establish the influence of age on serum biochemistry reference intervals (RIs) for unweaned calves and recently-weaned piglets using large number of animals sampled at different ages from populations under different season trials. Specifically, milk replacer (MR)-fed calves from April–July 2017 (n = 60); from...

How housing and transport conditions may affect welfare in porcine production is a leading topic in livestock research. This study investigated whether pigs present a different neurological response to management conditions and to ascertain whether pigs living partially outdoors cope differently with road transport-associated stress. Twenty-four fe...

Discriminant analysis. Wilks Lambda, Eigenvalues, cumulative proportions and standardized canonical discriminant function coefficients of the discriminant analysis. Only Discriminant functions 1 (DF1) and 2 (DF2) had eigenvalues > 1 and were included in the analysis. (XLSX)

Raw data. Data from serum biochemistry and catecholamines, PFC and HC monoamine NT and molecular markers of stress, and hippocampal BDNF of each animal in the study by housing, transport and pen. (XLSX)

The effects of different amino acid (AA) supplementations of milk protein-based milk replacers in pre-ruminant calves from 3 days to 7 weeks of age were studied. Animals were divided into 4 groups: Ctrl) Control group fed with milk protein-based milk replacer without supplementation; GP) supplementation with 0.1% glycine and 0.3% proline; FY) suppl...

Gender and RYR1 gene mutation might have an effect on the muscle metabolic characteristics and on the animal's stress at slaughter, which could influence the process of muscle-to-meat conversion. Forty-eight pigs were distributed in a design including two factors: sex (male/female) and RYR1 genotype (NN/Nn). At slaughter, physiological blood biomar...

Animal welfare and stress are important issues mainly because of public perception, marketing, product acceptance and production efficiency, quality and quantity. They are complex conditions that include physical and psychological stress, as well as the beneficial or deleterious effects that the environment may have on the welfare of the individual...

Background: In dogs, as in humans, C-reactive protein (CRP) is a major acute phase protein that is rapidly and prominently increased after exposure to inflammatory stimuli. CRP measurements are used in the diagnosis and monitoring of infectious and inflammatory diseases. Objectives: The study aim was to develop and validate a turbidimetric immun...

Proteomics has become an important analytical tool in the field of farm animals and their products. A general overview on approaches, sample types, and current animal protein and peptide databases is given. Food quality is closely connected with animal health; therefore this introductory chapter summarizes where proteomics can be of help to investi...

Research on human-animal relationship in animal production has been mainly focused on its effect on stress, productivity and meat quality. Only few studies have assessed its effects on the animals’ affective state. In the present study, the influence of positive and negative handling (PH and NH, respectively) on affective state and fear as assessed...

Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) are an interesting sample for searching for biomarkers with proteomic techniques because they are easy to obtain and do not contain highly abundant, potentially masking proteins. Two groups of pigs (n = 56) were subjected to mixing under farm conditions and afterwards subjected to different management treat...

Slaughter is a crucial step in the meat production chain that could induce psychological stress on each animal, resulting in a physiological response that can differ among individuals. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between an animal’s emotional state, the subsequent psychological stress at slaughter and the cellular dama...

Hyaluronan (HA), a major component of the extracellular matrix (ECM), has been increasingly recognized as a regulator of inflammation. Its role is complex since it has pro- and anti-inflammatory actions by modulating the expression of inflammatory genes, the recruitment of inflammatory cells and the production of inflammatory cytokines, but also by...

Detection of cortisol is one of the most widely used methods to assess stress in animals because it provides information about hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis activity. The most common biological samples are plasma, saliva, urine, faeces, milk and hair. Hair cortisol analysis could be a good non-invasive procedure to detect chronic stress since...

The present study assesses possible changes in the levels of different neurotransmitters (catecholamines and indoleamines) in fetuses affected by nutrient shortage. Hence, we determined the concentration of catecholamines and indoleamines at the hypothalamus of 56 swine fetuses obtained at both 70 and 90 days of pregnancy (n = 33 and 23 fetuses, re...

Chemical neurotransmitters (NT) are principal actors in all neuronal networks of animals. The central nervous system plays an important role in stress susceptibility and organizes the response to a stressful situation through the interaction of the dopaminergic and the serotonergic pathways, leading to the activation of the hypothalamus-pituitary-a...

Background The objective assessment of animal stress and welfare requires proper laboratory biomarkers. In this work, we have analyzed the changes in serum composition in gilts after switching their housing, from pen to individual stalls, which is generally accepted to cause animal discomfort. ResultsBlood and saliva samples were collected a day be...

Measures of animal emotions are essential to assess animal welfare. Recently, the cognitive bias technique has been proposed as a measure of animal affective state. This technique is based on the premise that subjects in negative affective states make more negative judgements about ambiguous stimuli than subjects in positive affective states. In th...

The current study aimed to determine, using a swine model of intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), whether short- and long-term neurological deficiencies and interactive dysfunctions of Low Birth-Weight (LBW) offspring might be related to altered pattern of neurotransmitters. Hence, we compared the quantities of different neurotransmitters (catec...

Stress and welfare are important factors to animal production in a context of growing production optimization and scrutiny by the general public. In a context in which animal and human health are intertwined aspects of the one-health concept it is of utmost importance to define markers for stress and welfare. These are important tools for producers...

Cognitive bias (CB) has been recently proposed as a tool to study emotions by assessing the cognitive function through behaviour observation. It is based on the premise that subjects in a negative affective state perform more negative judgements about ambiguous stimuli than subjects in positive affective state. This study aimed at investigating if...

Feed restriction, and seasonal weight loss (SWL), are major setbacks for animal production in the tropics and the Mediterranean. They may be solved through the use of autochthonous breeds particularly well adapted to SWL. It is therefore of major importance to determine markers of tolerance to feed restriction of putative use in animal selection. T...

The present work describes the serum haptoglobin (Hp) dynamics in piglets vaccinated and non-vaccinated with a commercial porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) vaccine at 3 weeks of age, and its relationship with the average daily weight gain (ADWG). The field study was carried out on two farms (A and B) with a previous clinical history of PCV2-systemic...

Introduction: Conjugated estrogen can be used for treatment in menopausal symptoms. Concentration of conjugated estrogen has been found in cow milk which provides a positive influence for menopausal milk consumers, but high concentrations may be harmful for patients with estrogen-responsive breast cancer. Retrospective studies reported the concentr...

Apolipoprotein A-I (Apo A-I) is a major protein in lipid/lipoprotein metabolism and decreased serum levels have been observed in many species in response to inflammatory and infectious challenges. Little is known about the porcine homologue, therefore in this work we have characterized it through biochemical and proteomic techniques. In 2DE, porcin...

Feed restriction, and seasonal weight loss (SWL), are major setbacks for animal production in the tropics and the Mediterranean. They may be solved through the use of autochthonous breeds particularly well adapted to SWL. It is therefore of major importance to determine markers of tolerance to feed restriction of putative use in animal selection. T...

Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP) is the cause of a chronic enteritis of ruminants (bovine paratuberculosis-Johne disease) that is associated with enormous worldwide economic losses for the animal production industries. Diagnosis is based on observation of clinical signs, on the detection of antibodies in milk or serum or on evaluat...

Animal production and health (APH) is an important sector in the world economy, representing a large proportion of the budget of all member states in the European Union and in other continents. APH is a highly competitive sector with a strong emphasis on innovation and, albeit with country to country variations, on scientific research. Proteomics (...

Traditional biomedical models are easy to manage in experimental facilities and allow fast and affordable basic genetic studies related to human disorders, but in some cases they do not always represent the complexity of their physiology. Translational medicine demands selected models depending on the particularities of the human disease to be inve...

The extracellular matrix (ECM) provides a scaffold for cell growth, impacts on cellular behaviour and plays an important role in pathological conditions. Several components of the ECM of lymphoid tissues have been shown to be crucial in the maturation, differentiation and migration of lymphocytes and other immune cells and, therefore, in the develo...

Unlabelled: Haptoglobin (Hp) and immunoglobulins are plasma glycoproteins involved in the immune reaction of the organism after infection and/or inflammation. Porcine circovirus type 2-systemic disease (PCV2-SD), formerly known as postweaning multisystemic wasting syndrome (PMWS), is a globally spread pig disease of great economic impact. PCV2-SD...

A fundamental issue of farm animal welfare is to keep animals clinically healthy, without disease or stress, particularly in intensive breeding, in order to produce safe and quality food. This issue is highly relevant for the food industry worldwide as they are directly linked to public health and welfare. The aim of this review is to explore how p...