Over the last two decades, we have learned that the immune system and metabolism are very interconnected, leading to the emergence of the field of immunometabolism. In dairy cattle, research in this area is helping us to understand how changes in metabolism and immune function influence production, with a specific emphasis on how nutrition influences immunometabolism.
One of the major regulators of immunometabolism via nutrition is the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR), which is sensitive to nutrients such as the amino acid (AA) methionine (Met). A core aspect of the field of immunometabolism is the investigation of how dietary and metabolic interventions can enhance immune health and responses to stressors (Basso et al., 2024). Researchers have explored how a variety of nutrients may influence and support immunometabolism, but of particular interest have been AA (Miyajima, 2020).
Likely, the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about AA is their need for protein synthesis. However, there is growing knowledge that many AA have functional roles beyond protein synthesis.
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