Dietary carbamoyl aspartate supplementation alleviates high-fat diet induced lipid metabolism disorder in broilers

Obesity threatens both human and poultry health, with intensive farming exacerbating metabolic disorders such as fatty liver disease. Safe and effective nutritional interventions remain limited. Carbamoyl aspartate (CA), a pyrimidine biosynthesis intermediate, reduced hepatic triglyceride (TG) accumulation in vitro (HepG2 cells) and in vivo (broilers). In broilers fed a high-fat diet (HFD), CA supplementation (800 mg/kg) significantly decreased liver weight, hepatic TG/total cholesterol (TC) levels, and abdominal fat deposition ( P < 0.05), while improving meat color and increasing muscle yield. Network pharmacology identified 22 candidate targets linking CA to lipid metabolism, with PDE4B showing the most favorable predicted docking interaction among the screened candidates. The compound-target-pathway-disease network suggested potential multi-target molecular associations. These findings support the potential of CA as a nutritional intervention for HFD-associated lipid metabolic disturbances in broilers, while the predicted molecular mechanisms require further validation.