# Blood lipidome profiling reveals potential biomarkers linked to health and carcass quality traits in pigs

## TL;DR

This study identifies lipid biomarkers in pigs linked to health and meat quality, showing genetic influences on lipid profiles.

## Contribution

The study reveals novel genetic correlations between the porcine lipidome and health/production traits, identifying potential biomarkers.

## Key findings

- Porcine lipidome shows low to moderate correlations with health and production traits, clustering into two opposing groups.
- 184 lipid molecules exhibited significant heritability, with genetic correlations to immune traits like lymphocyte activity and cortisol levels.
- Lipid profiles correlated with fatness and lean meat differ genetically, with distinct lipid classes involved in each trait.

## Abstract

The modulation, activation, and differentiation of several immune cells is highly dependent on lipid metabolism. The objective of this study was to analyse the genetic determinism of the porcine plasma lipidome and its association to the animal immune capacity and production performance. The analysis of the blood lipidome of 300 60-day-old Duroc pigs allowed semi-quantification of 982 circulating lipid molecules. We evaluated the genetic determinism of the lipidome abundances, as well as their phenotypic and genetic correlations with health, stress, and carcass phenotypes.

Triacylglycerols were the most abundant lipid class among the plasma lipid features, followed by glycerophosphocholines, glycerophosphoethanolamines, diacylglycerols, and fatty acids/esters. Lipidome abundances showed low to moderate phenotypic correlations with the health and production traits, which clustered in two groups with opposite phenotypic correlation patterns with the lipidome. Mean heritability estimates for the circulating lipids abundance was generally low, but 184 lipid molecules showed significant heritability ranging between 0.25 and 0.85. At the genetic level, the percentage and phagocytic capacity of lymphocytes, the proportion of γδ T lymphocytes, and the cortisol concentration in hair were especially correlated with the lipidome, showing more than 200 significant genetic correlations with different lipidic compounds. Putative identification of associated metabolites by mass similarity revealed a large presence of phospholipids and glycerolipids among lipid molecules genetically correlated with immunity traits. Regarding production traits, fatness and lean meat measures showed an opposite pattern of genetic correlations with the porcine lipidome. Lipids positively correlated with fatness were mainly composed of diacyl- and triacyl-glycerides, while potential ceramides and phospholipids were more abundant among the lipids positively correlated with lean meat content at the genetic level.

Our results demonstrate a genetic determinism of the porcine blood lipidomic profile and suggest genetic correlations of the lipidome abundances with health and production performance phenotypes. We identify potential lipid biomarkers for assessing animal health and productivity.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12711-026-01030-3.