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August 19, 2020

Choline in animal nutrition: Its role, sources and new approaches

by Carlos Lopez, Liptosa, Spain

Although the first references to choline date from back in the nineteenth century, choline’s role in animal nutrition was not well known until 1930s. In 1850, Theodore Gobley already discovered lecithin, which was followed by the discovery of choline in 1862, when Mr Adolph Strecker heated lecithin from bile, which produced a new nitrogenous chemical.
 
Since then, several researches have established choline to be an essential nutrient, which has four main functions (Zeissel 2006, Garrow 2007, Rajalekshmy 2010):
1. As a required constituent of phospholipids, choline is essential for building and maintaining cell structures, as well as to ensure the normal maturation of the cartilage matrix of the bone and prevent perosis in broilers
2. Choline plays an essential role in regulating fat metabolism in the liver, preventing abnormal accumulation of fat within hepatocytes (fatty liver) by increasing the utilisation of fatty acids in the liver
3. Choline is a precursor of acetyl choline synthesis, which makes possible the transmission of nerve impulses
4. Choline furnishes labile methyl groups for formation of methionine from homocysteine and of creatine from guanidoacetic acid.

Also, since choline contains biologically active methyl groups, methionine can serve as a partial alternative to choline.

Although, in contrast with most vitamins, choline can be synthetised by most species, this synthesis is often insufficient to satisfy the animal´s needs, making choline an essential component of the diet.

Choline is present in several feed ingredients traditionally used for feed formulation – 7374 mg/ kg DM rapeseed meal oil; 2899-3182 mg/kg DM soybean meal oil; 1743 mg/kg DM wheat meal; 1162 mg/kg DM barley; 617 mg/kg DM maize (INRA-CIRAD-AFZ tables), but little is known about its bioavailability and differences are expected based in crop growth conditions, treatment, season of the year etc.

Therefore, to overcome the variation in raw material concentration and the uncertainty of bioavailability, an adequate choline supplementation is required, supplying both the essential and non-essential needs of different animal species.


Read more HERE.
 

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