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

• Published in: Meat science Vol. 177; p. 108495
• Main Authors: Fontes, Marta Maria dos Santos, Costa, Thaís Correia, Lopes, Mariana Mescouto, Souza, Ranyeri Oliveira, Carneiro, Lorena Silva, Paulino, Pedro Veiga Rodrigues, Chizzotti, Mário Luiz, Silva, Fabyano Fonseca, Serão, Nick Vergara Lopes, Duarte, Marcio de Souza
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.07.2021
• Subjects: Cull cow; Heifer; High-energy diet; Meat; Soluble collagen; Tenderness; Cull cow; Heifer; High-energy diet; Soluble collagen; Tenderness; Meat
• ISSN: 0309-1740; 1873-4138
• DOI: 10.1016/j.meatsci.2021.108495

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.