The effect of feeding cannabis seed on CPT1B gene expression in Baluchi sheep

The goal of nutrigenomics is to study nutrients as signals that are received by cellular receptors, which can affect the genome, gene expression and metabolite production. In this research, to investigate the effect of cannabis seed on the fold change of carnitine palmitoyl transferase-1-B (CPT1B) expression in Baluchi sheep, 12 five-month-old male lambs were divided into two groups in a completely randomized design. The groups were fed with a control diet without cannabis seed and with a diet containing 10% cannabis seed. After the fattening period of 110 days, samples were taken from the heart, liver, testis, subcutaneous back fat and Longissimus dorsi muscle. Total RNA was extracted for Real Time PCR reaction and measurement of CPT1B gene expression change between groups. The change of CPT1B gene expression in liver tissue was significant between control and treatment groups (P<0.05). The expression of CPT1B gene was 5.74 times higher in liver of lambs treated with Cannabis seed compared with the control group. The CPT1B gene expression in heart, subcutaneous back fat, Longissimus dorsi muscle, and testis decreased by 3.1, 2.36, 2.12 and 2.47 times, respectively compared to control group. Cannabis seeds contain unsaturated fatty acids and these compounds can change the fat metabolism in the liver through the expression of genes such as CPT1B. Therefore, it can be stated that, CPT1B is one of the effective genes in fat metabolism and the addition of cannabis seeds to the diet can have a beneficial effect on the animal's production performance by increasing the activity of the liver tissue.