Abstract
Muscling in cattle is largely influenced by genetic background, ultimately affecting beef yield and is of major interest to the beef industry. This investigation aimed to determine whether primary skeletal muscle cells isolated from different breeds of cattle with a varying genetic potential for muscling differ in their myogenic proliferative capacity. Primary skeletal muscle cells were isolated and cultured from the Longissimus muscle (LM) of 6 month old Angus, Hereford and Wagyu X Angus cattle. Cells were assessed for rate of proliferation and gene expression of PAX7, MYOD, MYF5, and MYOG. Proliferation rates were found to differ between breeds of cattle whereby myoblasts from Angus cattle were found to proliferate at a greater rate than those of Hereford and Wagyu X Angus during early stages of growth (5–20 hours in culture) in vitro (P < 0.05). The proliferation rates of myoblasts during early stages of culture in vitro were also found to be positively related to the liveweight and carcase weight of cattle (P < 0.05). Gene expression of MYF5 was also found to be significantly down-regulated in WagyuX compared with Angus cattle (P < 0.05). These findings suggest that early events during myogenesis are important for determining liveweight and caracase weights in cattle.
Highlights
Genetic and environmental factors that are involved in regulating muscle growth in cattle are of major interest to the beef industry
Proliferation of primary skeletal muscle cells was higher in Angus cattle, compared with Hereford and Wagyu X Angus (WagyuX) cattle
Further investigations are required to test this. This investigation found that primary skeletal muscle cells from Angus, Hereford and WagyuX have different rates of proliferation in vitro, providing greater insight into possible explanations as to why Angus, Hereford and WagyuX cattle have phenotypic differences observed in skeletal muscle
Summary
Genetic and environmental factors that are involved in regulating muscle growth in cattle are of major interest to the beef industry. Increased muscling in cattle increases beef yield. Research is continuously being done to discover potential targets and mechanisms to increase beef yield. Myogenesis is first primarily regulated by four myogenic transcription factors from the myogenic regulatory factor (MRF) family, Myf, MyoD, MRF4 and MYOG [13]. Muscle progenitor cells enter the myogenic lineage by first expressing Myf, followed by MyoD [2, 8]. Myoblasts expressing MyoD/Myf differentiate and fuse with myoblasts to form multinucleated myotubes [14]. MYOG is expressed in PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0124468. MYOG is expressed in PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0124468 April 15, 2015
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