Association between body composition of growing pigs determined by magnetic resonance imaging, deuterium dilution technique, and chemical analysis

Development of body composition of 440 growing pigs from a three generation full-sib design to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) was determined by three different methods. Firstly, the non-invasive method deuterium dilution technique (DT), was applied to all pigs in the experiment at six weights 20, 30, 60, 90, 120 and 140 kg. Secondly, at each weight class, eight pigs were slaughtered and their entire body chemically analysed (CA). Thirdly, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was applied on 16 live pigs at different weights. For the entire empty body (without content of the gastrointestinal tract and bladder), allometric prediction equations to predict body composition from empty body water content measured by DT were derived from chemically analysed serial slaughtered pigs. These equations showed high correlations of 0.92, 0.90 and 0.85 for the contents of body water, fat-free substance as well as protein in fat-free substance, respectively. For the soft tissue (empty body without bones and viscera), allometric prediction equation of body composition based on DT and CA showed correlations of 0.91, 0.88 and 0.82 for water content, fat-free substance, and protein content of fat free substance, respectively. Fat tissue content, fat tissue mass, and lean tissue mass measured by MRI showed allometric relationships to lipid content, lipid mass, and protein mass determined by DT with correlations of 0.98, 0.87, and 0.98, respectively. Lean (measured by MRI) and protein (determined by DT) content of soft tissue was best fitted by a linear-quadratic polynomial and resulted in a correlation of 0.86. Allometric coefficients for change of percentages of chemical components, water (b = -0.036) and protein (b = 0.106) in fat-free substance of empty body during growth were similar to those in the literature indicating the consistency of accretion rates of chemical components of the fat-free substance in different studies. Means for protein- and lipid-deposition rates (determined by DT) as well as lean tissue- and fat tissue-deposition rates (measured by MRI) ranged from 95 to 154, 147 to 328, 373 to 420 and 129 to 254 g in the different weight ranges. Variation between animals in protein (lean tissue) and lipid (fat tissue) deposition rate was large which can be exploited in order to identify QTL of these traits.