Special Issue "Meat quality and Protein Expression in Livestock and Poultry"

A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Animal Nutrition".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2021.

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dorota Wojtysiak
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Guest Editor
Department of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Ethology, Faculty of Animal Science, University of Agriculture in Krakow, Krakow, Poland

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Muscle is a major source of protein for humans. Currently, as food supplies are more plentiful, meat quality is becoming increasingly important to consumers. Today, we know that meat quality is the result of many factors, such as animal nutrition, rearing and slaughter, and genotype. The long-term intensive selection of livestock and poultry, aimed at improving weight gain and dressing percentage in increasingly short periods of time, has contributed to undesirable metabolic and physiological disorders in the muscle tissue microstructure, which have adversely affected meat quality. Theories concerning the problem of increasing meatiness and decreasing meat quality in livestock and poultry often use research on muscle tissue microstructures and genetics at the molecular level. It is exactly these muscle microstructure parameters, in particular, muscle fiber composition, intramuscular fat content, and intramuscular connective tissue, that determine the physico-chemical parameters of meat (such as acidity, color, tenderness, drip loss, and water holding capacity) and thus its quality. It is generally accepted that during the conversion of muscle to meat, postmortem changes that occur in the muscle tissue and determine the subsequent production and culinary usefulness of the meat are dependent, among other things, on the rate of myofibrillar and cytoskeletal protein degradation. In the last decade, proteomic analyses have shown that protein degradation is associated with energy metabolism, cellular death cascades (apoptosis or autophagy), cellular survival (heat shock and chaperone proteins), and oxidative stress. Elucidation of these processes and their impacts on postmortem muscle proteins, as well as their inherent interactions, is key to understanding the mechanisms that influence meat quality.

This Special Issue welcomes both review and research papers on all aspects of the relationship between meat structure, protein expression, and meat quality. Areas of interest include the effect of breed, line, gender, nutrition, aging time, muscle type, etc. on meat quality and its structure and rate of protein degradation. Topics of special interest are the muscle development and growth mechanisms of livestock and poultry as related to muscle myopathies and meat quality.

I invite you to share your recent findings in this Special Issue.

Prof. Dorota Wojtysiak
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • meat quality
  • microstructure
  • muscle type
  • skeletal muscle proteins
  • postmortem aging
  • muscle myopathies
  • apoptosis
  • oxidative stress
  • heat shock proteins
  • breed
  • nutrition

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

Article
Effect of a Diet Supplemented with Nettle (Urtica dioica L.) or Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) on the Post-Slaughter Traits and Meat Quality Parameters of Termond White Rabbits
Animals 2021, 11(6), 1566; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11061566 - 27 May 2021
Viewed by 635
Abstract
The purpose of the study was to analyse the effect of nettle (Urtica dioica L.) leaves and fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) seeds as additives to fodder in order to improve post-slaughter traits and quality parameters of Termond White rabbit meat (n [...] Read more.
The purpose of the study was to analyse the effect of nettle (Urtica dioica L.) leaves and fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) seeds as additives to fodder in order to improve post-slaughter traits and quality parameters of Termond White rabbit meat (n = 60; 30♂, 30♀). Three experimental groups were created. The control group (n = 20; 10♂ and 10♀) was fed ad libitum feed containing corn, bran, wheat, dried alfalfa, soybean meal, sunflower meal, dicalcium phosphate, calcium carbonate and vitamin-mineral premix. The animals from the first experimental group (n = 20; 10♂ and 10♀) were fed a complete mixture added with 1% of nettle (Urtica dioica L.) leaves. Rabbits from the second group (n = 20; 10♂ and 10♀) were fed with a complete mixture added with 1% of fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) seeds. Rabbits fed with pellets with the addition of nettle were characterized by a higher slaughter weight, higher weight of hot and cold carcasses, lungs, kidneys and head as well as a higher weight of the fore, middle and hind part of the carcass compared to the other two groups. The carcasses of animals fed with fenugreek and nettle had a higher percentage of the fore and hind parts compared to the carcasses of the animals from the control group. The female carcasses were characterized by a significantly higher percentage of the middle part compared to the male carcasses. For most colour measurement traits, the differences depending on the feeding regime were significant. The effect of gender on meat colour was non significant. The effect of feeding regime and of gender on texture traits such as shear force, hardness, springiness, cohesiveness and chewiness were non significant. Feeding had no effect on muscle fibre diameter, but it affected the muscle fibre type I percentage. Thus, the group fed with pellets containing nettle leaves had higher percentage of type I muscle fibres than the control group. The effect of gender on muscle fibre traits was non significant. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Meat quality and Protein Expression in Livestock and Poultry)
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