Short communication: Comparison of the newly developed DVE/OEB (2010) system and the National Research Council (2001) model in modeling metabolic characteristics of proteins in dairy cattle.

The truly absorbed protein in the small intestine/degraded protein balance (DVE/OEB)2010 system is a recently developed protein evaluation system for ruminants. The objective of this study was to compare the DVE/OEB2010 system with the National Research Council (2001) model in determining the metabolic characteristics of proteins in dairy cattle. The metabolic characteristics of proteins in bioethanol feedstock and their co-products were compared in terms of (1) truly absorbed rumen synthesized microbial protein in the small intestine; (2) truly absorbed rumen undegraded feed protein in the small intestine; (3) endogenous protein in the digestive tract; (4) total truly absorbed protein in the small intestine; and (5) protein degraded balance. The DVE/OEB2010 system predicted 30% more truly absorbed rumen synthesized microbial protein in the small intestine, 4% more truly absorbed rumen undegraded feed protein in the small intestine, 64% more endogenous protein, 9% more total truly absorbed protein in the small intestine, but 27% less degraded protein balance.

Non-destructive analysis of the conformational differences among feedstock sources and their corresponding co-products from bioethanol production with molecular spectroscopy.

The objective of this study was to determine the possibility of using molecular spectroscopy with multivariate technique as a fast method to detect the source effects among original feedstock sources of wheat and their corresponding co-products, wheat DDGS, from bioethanol production. Different sources of the bioethanol feedstock and their corresponding bioethanol co-products, three samples per source, were collected from the same newly-built bioethanol plant with current bioethanol processing technology. Multivariate molecular spectral analyses were carried out using agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis (AHCA) and principal component analysis (PCA). The molecular spectral data of different feedstock sources and their corresponding co-products were compared at four different regions of ca. 1800-1725 cm(-1) (carbonyl CO ester, mainly related to lipid structure conformation), ca. 1725-1482 cm(-1) (amide I and amide II region mainly related to protein structure conformation), ca. 1482-1180 cm(-1) (mainly associated with structural carbohydrate) and ca. 1180-800 cm(-1) (mainly related to carbohydrates) in complex plant-based system. The results showed that the molecular spectroscopy with multivariate technique could reveal the structural differences among the bioethanol feedstock sources and among their corresponding co-products. The AHCA and PCA analyses were able to distinguish the molecular structure differences associated with chemical functional groups among the different sources of the feedstock and their corresponding co-products. The molecular spectral differences indicated the differences in functional, biomolecular and biopolymer groups which were confirmed by wet chemical analysis. These biomolecular and biopolymer structural differences were associated with chemical and nutrient profiles and nutrient utilization and availability. Molecular spectral analyses had the potential to identify molecular structure difference among bioethanol feedstock sources and their corresponding co-products.