Abstract
BackgroundThe molecular basis of compensatory growth in monogastric animals has not yet been fully explored. Herewith, in this study we aim to determine changes in the pig skeletal muscle transcriptome profile during compensatory growth following a feed restriction period. A RNA-Seq experiment was performed with a total of 24 females belonging to a Duroc commercial line. Half of the animals received either a restricted (RE) or ad libitum (AL) diet during the first fattening period (60–125 d of age). After that, all gilts were fed ad libitum for a further ~30 d until the age of ~155 d, when animals were slaughtered and samples of gluteus medius muscle were harvested to perform RNA-Seq analyses and intramuscular fat content determination.ResultsDuring the period following food restriction, RE animals re-fed ad libitum displayed compensatory growth, showed better feed conversion rate and tended to deposit more subcutaneous fat than AL fed animals. Animals were slaughtered in the phase of accelerated growth, when RE animals had not completely compensated the performance of AL group, showing lower live and carcass weights. At intramuscular level, RE gilts showed a higher content of polyunsaturated fatty acids during the compensatory growth phase. The comparison of RE and AL expression profiles allowed the identification of 86 (ǀlog2Fold-Changeǀ > 1, padj < 0.05) differentially expressed (DE) genes. A functional categorization of these DE genes identified AMPK Signaling as the most significantly enriched canonical pathway. This kinase plays a key role in the maintenance of energy homeostasis as well as in the activation of autophagy. Among the DE genes identified as components of AMPK Signaling pathway, five out of six genes were downregulated in RE pigs.ConclusionsAnimals re-fed after a restriction period exhibited a less oxidative metabolic profile and catabolic processes in muscle than animals fed ad libitum. The downregulation of autophagy observed in the skeletal muscle of pigs undergoing compensatory growth may constitute a mechanism to increase muscle mass thus ensuring an accelerated growth rate. These results reveal that the downregulation of AMPK Signaling plays an important role in compensatory growth in pigs.
Highlights
The molecular basis of compensatory growth in monogastric animals has not yet been fully explored
Our results show that RE animals had significantly lower growth rates than the AL ones during the restriction period but they experienced compensatory growth when they were fed ad libitum, surpassing daily gains obtained in AL group (1.14 kg in RE vs 0.97 kg in AL; P-value < 0.005)
Our study focuses on changes in the pig skeletal muscle transcriptome profile during the phase of accelerated growth in the initial compensatory growth (CG) period after feed restriction
Summary
The molecular basis of compensatory growth in monogastric animals has not yet been fully explored. All gilts were fed ad libitum for a further ~30 d until the age of ~155 d, when animals were slaughtered and samples of gluteus medius muscle were harvested to perform RNA-Seq analyses and intramuscular fat content determination. Different feeding strategies have been applied to modify growth performance, carcass composition and meat quality traits (reviewed in [1, 2]). Among these strategies, the benefits of having a compensatory growth (CG) response induced by an energy. The effect of feed restriction on muscle fat deposition and fatty acid profile should be investigated, especially in systems aimed at obtaining a product of differential quality. Heyer and Lebret [11] reported that food restriction did not cause significant changes on intramuscular fat content, whereas Daza et al [2] observed changes in the muscle fatty acid profile of Iberian pigs under food restriction
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