Myofiber typing and pig meat production
2001
Lefaucheur, L. (INRA, Saint-Gilles (France). Station de Recherches Porcines)
Muscle fiber characteristics have long been thought to be important factors influencing meat quality; however, identifying a superior fiber type for meat production remains a tough issue. This could be due to the fact that myofiber type composition, as well as meat quality, are influenced by many genetic and environmental factors that are not sufficiently controlled in the experiments. After a brief presentation of recent knowledge underlying conventional fiber typing, this review describes myofiber type differentiation, and presents some factors of variation. Finally, current knowledge about the significance of myofiber typing in modulating growth performance and meat quality is discussed. This review covers data showing that muscle fiber type composition is highly variable and can be influenced by factors such as muscle type, breed, major genes, individual, sex, fetaland postnatalnutrition, ambient temperature, exercise, growth-promoting agents, and transgenesis. The heritability of some histochemicalcharacteristics suggests that conventionalsel ection on myofiber attributes can be efficiently used to manipulate muscle fiber type composition. The correlated responses of growth and meat quality traits to this kind of selection could bring valuable information to better understand the significance of muscle fiber type in determining growth performance and meat quality. Because of the intense changes occuring during the early postnatal period, altering muscle fiber type composition by nutritional and/or environmental factors at this time could be maximal. Finally, increasing the total number of fibers, a characteristic definitely established before birth in the pig, is a promising way to increase muscle mass without increasing fiber size which is sometimes speculated to alter meat quality.
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Este registro bibliográfico ha sido proporcionado por University of Ljubljana