Features of accumulation and variability of stable strontium in some organs and tissues of landrace pigs

Abstract

The authors in the article demonstrated the results of assessing the level of stable strontium in the skeletal muscles, liver, kidneys and spleen of Landrace pigs at the end of the technological cycle. The studies were performed on clinically healthy animals raised in a large pig farm in the Altai Territory. The conditions of keeping the animals corresponded to those typical for meat fattening up to 100 kg. Feeding was carried out with complete feed. Elemental analysis of samples of parenchymal organs and muscle tissue was performed using inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectral analysis. Data processing was performed using Microsoft Office Excel and the R programming language in the data analysis environment RStudio version 2022.07.2+576 (RStudio, PBC). The distribution did not correspond to normal in all cases. The dispersions are not homogeneous. Based on the mean value and median, an increasing ranked series of strontium content in organs and tissues were established: liver = skeletal muscles < spleen < kidneys, in numerical terms: 1: 1: 3.7: 4.7 and 1: 1: 3.9: 5.7 respectively. Medians for stable strontium in the liver, kidney, spleen, and skeletal muscle were 0.024; 0.130; 0.089 and 0.023 mg/kg, respectively. Reference intervals for the liver are 0.004-0.043 and for the spleen - 0.030-0.145 mg/kg. The most significant range of variability is characteristic of the kidneys of pigs. A considerable uniformity is typical of the liver and skeletal muscles. Using the Kruskal-Wallis test, it was established that the accumulation of stable strontium significantly differs in the examined organs and tissues of pigs (H = 68.9, df = 3, p < 0.0001). Pairwise comparison showed significant differences for the kidney-liver, spleen-liver, skeletal muscle-kidney, and skeletal muscle-spleen pairs. Two clusters were identified according to the similarity of strontium accumulation: liver and skeletal muscles, kidneys and spleen. The calcium-strontium ratio, taking into account medians, for skeletal muscles was 1:1833, and for the liver - 1:1870. The established results can serve as an approximate physiological norm for the concentration of stable strontium in individual structures of the organism of Landrace pigs under the conditions of Western Siberia.