Amino acid profile of broiler chickens meat fed diets supplemented with bee pollen and propolis

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of diets supplemented with bee pollen and propolis on the amino acid (AA) profile of chicken meat. A total of 360 one day-old Ross 308 broiler chicks were randomly assigned to three treatments: a basal diet without supplementation as control (C); a basal diet supplemented with bee pollen extract (400 mg kg−1 of feed mixture: E1); and a basal diet supplemented with propolis extract (400 mg kg−1 of feed mixture: E2). Chickens were slaughtered at 42 d of age. After slaughter, the AA profile of breast and thigh samples was determined. The data were analyzed using analysis of variance. The AA profile was not affected by dietary bee pollen supplementation (E1) in breast and thigh muscles (disregarding sex), except for higher concentration of Tyr (p ≤ 0.05) in breast and lower concentration of Pro (p > 0.05) in breast and thigh muscles compared with those in C. However, the AA profile was improved in response to propolis supplementation (E2). In breast muscle (disregarding sex), the highest concentrations of Glu (11.81 g 100 g−1), Gly (3.5 g 100 g−1), and Tyr (4.12 g 100 g−1) were found in the propolis-supplemented group (E2), Glu and Tyr were higher (p ≤ 0.05) in E2 compared with those in C, while Gly was higher (p ≤ 0.05) in E2 compared to E1. Additionally, many other AAs (Asp, Ser, Ala, Tyr, Arg, Thr, Ile, Leu, Phe, and Lys) were observed as the highest (p > 0.05) in breast muscle of broilers fed a diet with propolis extract (E2). In thigh muscle (disregarding sex), higher concentrations (p ≤ 0.05) of Tyr (2.46 g 100 g−1) and His (2.35 g 100 g−1) were found in the propolis-supplemented group (E2) compared with those in C. Many other AAs (Glu, Gly, His, Arg, Thr, Val, Ile, Leu, and Lys) in thigh muscle from propolis-supplemented group (E2) were also higher (p > 0.05) than those in the other groups. After bee pollen (E1) and propolis (E2) supplementation, no differences in amino acid concentrations between males and females, or in breast or thigh muscle were found. In general, breast was demonstrated to contain higher proportions of AAs than thigh muscle. In conclusion, dietary propolis supplementation in amount of 400 mg kg−1 of feed mixture elicited the best AA profile of chicken meat among the dietary treatments and may thus be a promising method to improve meat quality.