Thirty-two male fallow deer, half 18- and half 30-month-old, were slaughtered after a 4-month feeding trial on pasture alone or with daily supplement of 500 g (dry matter) concentrate/head (eight each 18- and 30-month-old). Neither diet nor age produced significant effects on M. longissimus thoracis et lumborum (LM) and on M. semimembranosus (SM) pH and colour. Meat texture properties (Warner-Bratzler-WB Shear Force and compression), water loss and collagen content were unaffected by diet, while the older deer had higher LM WB peak force values (4.15 vs 4.88 kg) and lower collagen solubility (34.61 vs 22.58%). LM and M. semitendinosus (ST) of the supplemented deer had a higher content of fat (pasture vs concentrate feeding: 0.56 vs 0.72% in LM; 0.55 vs 0.78% in ST) and provided lower PUFA, particularly n-3 PUFA, and higher n-6/n-3 ratio (3.30 vs 4.76 in LM; 3.39 vs 4.63 in ST). Thirty-month-olds' LM and ST were fatter than 18-month-olds', and provided lower PUFA, both in the n-6 and n-3 fraction.

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The influence of genetic type, lean meat percentage and sex on fatty acids (FA) composition of back fat of heavy pigs, reared for the production of San Daniele dry cured ham, was studied. One-hundred pigs of four genetic types - Large White or Duroc x (Landrace x Large White), GOLAND and DANBRED - were considered. They were randomly chosen during the slaughtering of 21 lots of heavy animals, in groups of four to eight subjects, balanced by sex, female and castrated males, and carcass leanness, U and R classes following the European grading system. Principal components (PCs) analysis showed that 94.3% of lot-diets’ FA variability was accounted for a five PCs model. The diet effect on the lard composition was weighted using the PCs scores as covariates in a tri-factorial (genotype, carcass leanness, sex) covariance design. Diet had a great effect on lard composition, indeed every examined back fat FA co-varied with the extracted PCs. On the other hand, sex effect never reached a significance threshold, as well as the interactions between factors. Genetic type influenced stearic acid and MUFA content and n6-PUFA to n3-PUFA ratio of back fat while leanness mainly influenced PUFA, the fatter class showing a significantly lower content of linoleic acid (13.2 vs. 11.9% total lipids in U vs. R class respectively)

DNA-based diagnostics are now well-established as a means to assay diversity at the locus, chromosome, and whole-genome levels. As technology has advanced, DNA sequence-based assays have become easier to use, more efficient at screening for nucleotide sequence-based polymorphisms, and available to a wider cross-section of the research community. A review of the use of molecular markers in several different areas of genetics and plant breeding will be presented, as well as a discussion about their advantages and limitations. Recent advances in several areas of technology development and laboratory automation will also be presented, including a summary of direct comparison of different DNA marker systems against a common set of soybean cultivars.