Background and challenges

Rapeseed (Brassica napus) is a major oil-producing plant in France and Europe. The advent of "double zero" genotypes, which reduce the content of anti-nutritional compounds, has made it possible to expand the use of new rapeseed cultivars for the edible oil market and as a source of protein in animal nutrition, with the aim of replacing all or part of soya and increasing the protein autonomy of France and the EU.

From a nutritional point of view for dairy cows, the substitution of soybean meal by rapeseed meal in rations makes it possible to improve the efficiency of metabolizable proteins and the nitrogen efficiency towards milk proteins, while reducing urinary nitrogenous discharges, which are a major source of pollution. Furthermore, cows on rapeseed meal rations seem to produce less methane than those on soybean rations. The content of anti-nutritional compounds that used to be a hindrance in animal feed are no longer present at a harmful level in "double zero" seeds and may even paradoxically present health benefits due to direct or indirect antioxidant properties. While the transfer of bioactives from rapeseed oilcake to cow's milk has been documented macroscopically, there is no data to date detailing the molecular nature of the compounds in milk or transferred from milk to the consumer.

Goals

The project aims to characterise the specific transfer of rapeseed bioactives and their metabolites (primary biotransformation) into cow's milk, to carry out a nutritional trial on mice to assess the nature of the rapeseed-derived compounds transferred from milk to mice as well as their metabolism in this animal (secondary biotransformation), and to assess the bioactivity of the transferred molecules present in the mouse plasma on the antioxidant activity.

INRAE units involved

• Center for CardioVascular and Nutrition research
• Physiologie, Environnement et Génétique pour l'Animal et les Systèmes d'Elevage
• Unité de nutrition humaine