The fatty acid composition of the <i>Longissimus dorsi</i> muscle, subcutaneous and visceral fats differ in four commercial pig breeds

Abstract

Fatness traits, including fatty acid (FA) composition, influence the dietary value of meat products. In this study we compared the fatty acid profiles in the carcasses of two main Polish breeds, Polish Large White (PLW) and Polish Landrace (PL), and two common commercial ones, Duroc and Pietrain. The Longissimus dorsi muscle, subcutaneous and visceral fats were sampled from 85 gilts that were fed the same diets and slaughtered at the same body weight (100 kg). Several significant between-breed differences were observed in FA composition, especially in subcutaneous and abdominal fat. In all tissues, the lowest percentage of saturated fatty acids (SFA) was observed in Pietrain pigs, with the differences depending mainly on C16:0 and C18:0. In abdominal fat, the highest content of monounsaturated fatty acids was found in that of PLW, chiefly due to an elevated content of C18:1 n-9. In both adipose tissues the highest content of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) was found in Pietrain and the lowest in PLW. These differences were mainly because of the high content of C18:2 in Pietrain pigs. The existence of between-breed and tissue differences was confirmed by linear discriminant analysis, which revealed that the studied tissues can be distinguished according to FA profile with an overall prediction ability of 89.8%. It was also shown that the percentage of PUFA in the studied tissues was negatively correlated with abdominal fat weight. We conclude that the FA profile in the carcass of Pietrain pigs is the most favourable, while two Polish breeds and the Duroc breed have similar FA profiles.

Association of the ADRB3, FABP3, LIPE, and LPL gene polymorphisms with pig intramuscular fat content and fatty acid composition

“…In the present study, the mean value of IMF contents (%) of Longissimus dorsi muscle in Shanzhu × Duroc crossbreds was 2.53. This value is much higher than 1.56 which was measured in Duroc pigs (Klensporf-Pawlik et al 2012). …”

Transcript level of the porcine ME1 gene is affected by SNP in its 3′UTR, which is also associated with subcutaneous fat thickness

“…It is well known that the FA profile can be modified by feeding (Kouba & Mourot 2011), but it was also documented that it as a heritable trait (Sellier et al 2010). The genetic impact was supported by observations on between-breed variability under the same feeding regime (Raj et al 2010;Klensporf-Pawlik et al 2012). Genome scanning revealed the presence of QTL regions for FA composition on several pig chromosomes (Uemoto et al 2012), whereas studies of candidate gene polymorphisms indicated that some of them, for example two known and extensively studied single-nucleotide polymorphisms in the FABP3 gene, are associated with the FA profile in porcine fat depots .…”

“…The search for variation in sequence and an analysis of transcript level of the ME1 gene were performed in a multibreed panel composed of 83 unrelated gilts representing 4 breeds: Duroc (N = 21), Pietrain, (N = 12), Polish Landrace (PL, N = 25) and Polish Large White (PLW, N = 25). For these gilts, FA composition in three fat depots (visceral, subcutaneous and intramuscularlongissimus) was studied earlier (Klensporf-Pawlik et al 2012).…”

Transcript abundance of the pig stearoyl-CoA desaturase gene has no effect on fatty acid composition in muscle and fat tissues, but its polymorphism within the putative microRNA target site is associated with daily body weight gain and feed conversion ratio1

“…Fatty acid composition (in weight percentage of total fatty acid content) was measured by gas chromatography in LM and back fat in the 4 breeds (n = 83) and reported elsewhere (Klensporf-Pawlik et al, 2012). Shortly, tissues were homogenized and total lipids extracted using a chloroform:methanol 2:1 (vol/vol) according to Folch et al (1957).…”