Intramuscular collagen characteristics and expression of related genes in skeletal muscle of cull cows receiving a high-energy diet

• DOI: 10.1016/j.meatsci.2021.108495
• Publication Date: 2021-03-13T23:13:30Z
• Authors: Marta Maria dos S...; Thaís Correia Costa; Mariana Mescouto ...; Ranyeri Oliveira ...; Lorena Silva Carn...; Pedro Veiga Rodri...; Mário Luiz Chizzotti; Fabyano Fonseca S...; Nick Vergara Lope...; Marcio de Souza D...
• Keywords: 2. Zero hunger; 0402 animal and dairy science; Gene Expression; 04 agricultural and veterinary sciences; Animal Feed; Diet; Protein-Lysine 6-Oxidase; Red Meat; Solubility; Animals; Cattle; Female; Collagen; RNA, Messenger; Muscle, Skeletal; Shear Strength

We aimed to investigate differences in the synthesis and metabolism of intramuscular collagen in the Longissimus thoracis (LT) muscle between heifers and cull-cows fed high-energy diet. Ten cull-cows, (74.9 ± 3.2 months age, weighing 536 ± 14.55 kg) and ten heifers (18.4 ± 3.2 months age, weighting 310.5 ± 14.5 kg) were fed with high-energy diets for 150 days. The total collagen content did not differ between treatments. Greater collagen solubility was observed in heifers than cull-cows, although no differences in lysyl oxidase activity were observed between treatments. No differences were observed for mRNA expression of CO1A1, MMP2, MMP9 and TIMP2 between treatments. However, cull-cows presented greater mRNA expression of COL3A1, TIMP1 and TIMP3 than heifers. Our data give no indication that feeding a high-energy diet to cull-cows decreases the concentration of intramuscular collagen in the LT muscle or increases its solubility in respect to the collagen solubility in LT muscles from heifers on the same diet.