Lipidome profiles of postnatal day 2 vaginal swabs reflect fat composition of gilt’s postnatal diet

KaLynn Harlow; Christina R. Ferreira; Tiago J.P. Sobreira; Theresa Casey; Kara Stewart

The link between early nutritional environment, uterine development, and subsequent 72 reproductive potential led to the hypothesis that early nutritional environment affects 73 reproductive tract development and subsequently predicts long-term reproductive performance of 74 gilts. However, in order to evaluate uterine development, the animal must be euthanized. We 75 previously proposed that since the vagina is embryologically related to the uterus [14] , its 76 postnatal developmental trajectory may also be responsive to early nutritional environment. 77 Moreover, we proposed that using vaginal swabs to non-invasively sample lower reproductive 78 tract may serve as a means to evaluate differences in nutritional exposures on gilt development. 79 Using a biomarker-discovery technique known as multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) profiling, . CC-BY 4.0 International license is made available under a The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the author/funder. It . https://doi.org/10.1101/593392 doi: bioRxiv preprint 80 we found that lipid profiles of vaginal swabs taken on postnatal day 14 differed between gilts 81 that were fed milk replacer during the first 48 h postpartum before return to litter versus gilts that 82 suckled sow's milk continuously from birth [15] .