Estimation of genetic parameters for fatty acid composition in M. longissimus thoracis of Japanese Black cattle

Genetic relationships between meat quality traits and fatty acid composition in Japanese black cattle

“…The genetic and phenotypic correlations of BMS, FIR and TEX with fatty acid composition were all weak and negative. Genetic correlations of BMS with fatty acid composition in the previous studies except for Inoue et al () were all positive: 0.15 to 0.40 between BMS and C18:1 (Inoue et al ; Nogi et al ; Yokota et al ; Nakahashi et al ); 0.13 to 028 between BMS and MUFA (Inoue et al ; Nogi et al ; Yokota et al ); 0.24 to 029 between BMS and MUS (Inoue et al ; Nogi et al ); 0.14 between BMS and elongation indices (Nogi et al ); and 0.37 between BMS and ELONG (Inoue et al ). The estimates by Inoue et al () were obtained from a part of the data used in the present study, and the genetic and phenotypic correlations between BMS and C18:0 were −0.09 and −0.01, respectively.…”

“…Nogi et al () reported that heritability of C18:1, MUFA, MUS and elongation indices were 0.78, 0.68, 0.63 and 0.80, respectively using samples of M. longissimus from 2275 Japanese Black cattle. Yokota et al () and Nakahashi et al () also used samples from M. longissimus of 872 (Yokota et al ) and 4615 (Nakahashi et al ) Japanese Black cattle and reported high heritability for C18:1 (0.65 and 0.80, respectively) and MUFA (0.60 and 0.82, respectively). Using samples of M. trapezius from 863 Japanese Black steers, Inoue et al () reported heritability estimates of 0.73 for C18:1, 0.66 for MUFA, 0.75 for MUS and 0.67 for ELONG.…”

“…As mentioned above, the data used in Inoue et al () were a part of the data for the present study, but the other studies used data from other prefectures. Data collected from the Livestock Improvement Association in Japan, Hokkaido prefecture, Tottori prefecture and Miyagi prefecture were analyzed by Inoue et al (); Nakahashi et al (); Nogi et al () and Yokota et al (), respectively. These various populations might have been the reason for the differences in the genetic association between BMS and fatty acid composition, because these populations should have different genetic structures.…”

“…The genetic correlations were almost the same as the results of previous studies, although most of their 95% HPD region included 0. Nakahashi et al () estimated a genetic correlation of 0.09 between BCS and C18:1. Yokota et al () reported genetic correlations of BCS with C18:1 and MUFA as 0.10 and 0.13, respectively, but the phenotypic correlations were −0.04 and −0.01, respectively.…”

“…For example, higher MUFA concentrations improve sweet aroma (Sakuma et al ) and flavor (Suzuki et al ) in Japanese Black cattle, one of the Wagyu breeds. For this reason, research on fatty acid composition such as MUFA content is receiving more attention in Japan and hence, genetic parameters have been studied extensively in recent years (Inoue et al ; Nogi et al ; Yokota et al ; Nakahashi et al ). Although these studies concentrated on the genetic relationships of fatty acid composition with BMS and carcass traits related to meat quantity such as carcass weight, only Yokota et al () estimated the relationships between fatty acid composition and meat quality traits, such as FIR in Japanese Black cattle.…”