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Effects of lowered dietary calcium on the production performance, meat quality and adipogenic marker gene expression in Korean Hanwoo beef cattle
Author(s) -
Vergara Emil Joseph Sanvictores,
Oh Young Kyoon,
Kim Doo Hyun,
Hong Suk Won,
Hwang Seong Gu
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.30.1_supplement.lb361
Subject(s) - hanwoo , marbled meat , calcium , food science , adipogenesis , beef cattle , zoology , gene expression , biology , chemistry , gene , biochemistry , organic chemistry
Marbling is one of the most important characteristics in the production of high quality beef. In practice, nutritional manipulations are frequently performed in order to achieve better marbled, and thus higher quality beef. Our previous studies have shown the molecular mechanism upon which low extracellular calcium causes an increase in the adipogenesis of fat precursor cells. The experiment was designed in order to determine the effect of lowered dietary calcium on the meat quality of Korean Hanwoo beef cattle. Dietary calcium was reduced through the decrease of limestone content in the feed formulation. Sixty animals were divided into 3 groups (n=20); control (1.32% limestone), treatment 1 (1.02% limestone) and treatment 2 (0.72% limestone). After six months of feeding trial, the animals were slaughtered and the carcass characteristics and production performance were obtained. In addition, RNA samples were isolated from muscle samples collected from the cervical area and the expression of adipogenic marker genes (PPARγ, CEBP/α, aP2 and SREBPc) were measured through reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction. Results have shown that lowering the dietary calcium level causes no improvements or changes in the production performance, carcass quality, serum biochemical parameters, and mRNA expression of adipogenic marker genes. In addition, no significant changes were seen in the calcium content of the serum suggesting a tight regulation for the mineral by the calcium homeostasis system of the animal. In conclusion, a lowered dietary calcium at the level used in this study does not result in increased carcass characteristics in Hanwoo beef cattle. Information derived from this study can serve as a basis for the design of future experiments for nutrient manipulations involving calcium.