Silvia Pianezze
Application of stable isotopes analysis in tracing fatty acids metabolic path in ruminants.
Supervisor: Prof.Edi Piasentier
The bio-elements H, C, S, O and N have different stable isotopes (2H, 1H, 13C, 12C, 18O, 17O, 16O, 36S, 34S, 33S, 32S, 15N, 14N) and their ratios can be measured using Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (IRMS). These isotopic ratios have shown capability to trace the geographical origin and to evaluate the authenticity of animal origin food. They also proved to be an interesting tool to study how isotopic ratios change in animal and vegetal matrixes depending on different variables.
As regards animal matrixes, SIR analysis is capable of determining geographical origin, animal diet, and the production system (such as organic/conventional or wild/farmed) for pork, beef, lamb, poultry, milk, butter, cheese, fish, and shellfish.
As fatty acids are important components of ruminant meat, their metabolic path, from animal feed to their deposition into animal tissues, is an interesting subject of study. In particular, the project is going to focus on linolenic and linoleic acid, by analysing different matrixes (animal feed, ruminant content, duodenum content, liver and muscle) through GC-C\Py-IRMS. The changes in fatty acids isotopic values will be studied by feeding culled cows with different animal feedstuffs (C3 plants vs. C4 plants; hay vs. grazed grass; soybean meal vs. hemp cake).
This project is going to permit us to improve our scientific knowledge about meats fatty acids profile, tracing their metabolic path through the cow organism with the additional and innovative information given by stable isotopes analysis.
Biography and Contracts
Silvia Pianezze was born in 1992 in Agordo, Italy. In 2014 she obtained her bachelor’s degree in Chemistry (96/100) at the University of Padua. Thanks to Erasmus+ programme, she also spent six months at the University of Cordoba in Andalusia, Spain. At the University of Padua she also got her master’s degree in Chemistry (105/110) in 2016, presenting a thesis titled Synthesis, characterization and properties of [2]rotaxanes sterically hindered. In 2017 she started working at Edmund Mach Foundation as a Laboratory Technician. In 2018 she started the doctoral course at the PhD school “Agricultural Science and Biotechnology” of the University of Udine.