Transition cow clusters with distinctive antioxidant ability and their relation to performance and metabolic status in early lactation

Metabolic and oxidative stress have been characterized as risk factors during the transition period from pregnancy to lactation. Although mutual relations between both types of stress have been suggested, they rarely have been studied concomitantly. For this, a total of 99 individual transition dairy cows (117 cases, 18 cows sampled during 2 consecutive lactations) were included in this experiment. Blood samples were taken at −7, 3, 6, 9, and 21 d relative to calving and concentrations of metabolic parameters (glucose, β-hydroxybutyric acid (BHBA), nonesterified fatty acids, insulin, insulin-like growth factor 1, and fructosamine) were determined. In the blood samples of d 21, biochemical profiles related to liver function and parameters related to oxidative status were determined. First, cases were allocated to 2 different BHBA groups (ketotic vs. nonketotic, N:n = 20:33) consisting of animals with an average postpartum BHBA concentration and at least 2 out of 4 postpartum sampling points exceeding 1.2 mmol/L or remaining below 0.8 mmol/L, respectively. Second, oxidative parameters [proportion of oxidized glutathione to total glutathione in red blood cells (%)], activity of glutathione peroxidase, and of superoxide dismutase, concentrations of malondialdehyde and oxygen radical absorbance capacity were used to perform a fuzzy C-means clustering. From this, 2 groups were obtained [i.e., lower antioxidant ability (LAA80%, n = 31) and higher antioxidant ability (HAA80%, n = 19)], with 80% referring to the cutoff value for cluster membership. Increased concentrations of malondialdehyde, decreased superoxide dismutase activity, and impaired oxygen radical absorbance capacity were observed in the ketotic group compared with the nonketotic group, and inversely, the LAA80% group showed increased concentrations of BHBA. In addition, the concentration of aspartate transaminase was higher in the LAA80% group compared with the HAA80% group. Both the ketotic and LAA80% groups showed lower dry matter intake. However, a lower milk yield was observed in the LAA80% group but not in the ketotic group. Only 1 out of 19 (5.3%) and 3 out of 31 (9.7%) cases from the HAA80% and LAA80% clusters belong to the ketotic and nonketotic group, respectively. These findings suggested that dairy cows vary in oxidative status at the beginning of the lactation, and fuzzy C-means clustering allows to classify observations with distinctive oxidative status. Dairy cows with higher antioxidant capacity in early lactation rarely develop ketosis.