Transcript profiling in the liver of early-lactating dairy cows fed conjugated linoleic acid

In the present study, transcript profiling was carried out in the liver samples from wk 5 of lactation in order to identify genes and pathways regulated by rumen-protected CLA during early lactation. The first wks after parturition represent a critical phase in the productive cycle of high-yielding dairy cows because the liver experiences pronounced metabolic and inflammatory stress which increases the risk to develop liver-associated diseases, such as fatty liver and ketosis. For microarray analysis, RNA pools (n = 5) each for the CLA group and the control group were prepared. Each RNA pool comprised RNA from 4 different cows. The RNA pools were used for hybridization to the GeneChip® Bovine Genome Array (Affymetrix, High Wycombe, UK).