Short communication: Docosahexaenoic acid promotes vaccenic acid accumulation in mixed ruminal cultures when incubated with linoleic acid

Previous studies found that feeding dairy cows a blend of fish and soybean oils enhanced milk vaccenic acid (VA) and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) concentrations more than when the oils were fed separately. In these studies, the authors concluded that a component in fish oil was stimulating ruminal VA production from other sources of unsaturated fatty acids; however, that component was not identified. The objective of this study was to determine whether docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), an omega-3 fatty acid (FA) in fish oil, is the active component that promotes trans-C18:1 FA, VA in particular, accumulation using cultures of mixed ruminal microorganisms. Treatments consisted of control, control plus 5 mg of DHA (DH), control plus 30 mg of soybean oil (SBO), and control plus 5 mg of DHA and 30 mg of SBO (DHSBO). Treatments were incubated in triplicate in 125-mL flasks, and 5 mL of culture contents was taken at 0 and 24 h for fatty acid analysis by gas-liquid chromatography. After 24 h of incubation, the level of trans-C18:1 FA (14.1 and 11.7 mg/culture) and VA (13.0 and 10.2 mg/culture) increased more with added DHA than with added SBO, respectively. Combining DHA and SBO yielded higher quantities of trans-C18:1 FA (21.3 mg/culture) and VA (19.8 mg/culture) in the cultures than either fat source alone. These data suggest that DHA is the component in fish oil that promotes VA accumulation when incubated with linoleic acid.