Evaluation of motilin, ghrelin, and gastrin as potential biomarkers of type I abomasal ulcers in fattening young bulls.

Serum motilin, ghrelin, and gastrin effectively identify severe abomasal ulcers in cattle.

This study evaluated serum levels of motilin, ghrelin, and gastrin as potential biomarkers for Type I abomasal ulcers in 44 fattening Holstein bulls aged 16-18 months. Animals were classified into three groups based on postmortem examination: Control (n=20), mild ulcers (n=15), and severe ulcers (n=9). No significant differences in hormone levels were found between control and mild ulcer groups. However, severe ulcer cases demonstrated significantly elevated serum concentrations of all three hormones (P<0.001). Receiver operating characteristic analysis revealed moderate diagnostic value for distinguishing mild ulcers (AUC 0.78-0.83) but superior performance for severe ulcers (AUC 0.88-0.96), with gastrin showing the highest discriminative ability. Strong positive correlations existed between hormone concentrations. These findings suggest that serum motilin, ghrelin, and gastrin may serve as valuable diagnostic biomarkers, particularly for identifying severe abomasal ulcer disease in cattle, potentially enabling earlier clinical intervention and improved herd health management.

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