Abstract
High meat quality and specifically meat tenderness are desired traits by the consumers, however the environmental impact of meat production is becoming a relevant factor in the industry. Therefore, breeding of dual purpose cattle breeds may answer the high demand of meat production in the future. In this study we identified statistical differences between genotypes of CAST and CAPN1 gene variants with meat quality traits in a dairy breed (Nordic Red Cattle) and compared the results with beef breed (Aberdeen Angus). Our results show that the favorable alleles have not been selected in the studied dairy breed and thus could be used as a tool for improvement of meat quality. The genes were associated with specific meat quality traits (i.e. sensory juiciness, marbling score and meat color) also in the dairy breed. This supports the utility of known meat quality associated genetic variants to improve meat quality in dairy breeds.
Highlights
The consumption of animal-based food proteins is predicted to increase (FAO 2011), which emphasizes the importance to improve the environmental performance of livestock system (Herrero et al 2013)
As expected the meat quality based on all analyzed traits was lower in the Nordic Red Cattle (NRC) breed compared to FAA
There were differences in NRC in various meat quality traits depending on the genotype individual had for CAST or CAPN1 gene variations, which indicates a possible selection tool for meat quality in this population
Summary
The consumption of animal-based food proteins is predicted to increase (FAO 2011), which emphasizes the importance to improve the environmental performance of livestock system (Herrero et al 2013). Vellinga and de Vries (2018) evaluated four commonly used mitigation strategies for dairy systems and concluded that dual purpose systems can be advantageous over specialized dairy systems. Breeding of high quality dual purpose cattle breeds could answer the demand of meat production in the future. Meat tenderness is considered as the most important meat quality trait (Lian et al 2012). Meat tenderization is a complex process affected by several elements including pre-and post-slaughter factors and genetic background (Lian et al 2012). Post-mortem tenderization of the meat is due to enzymatic degradation of myofibrillar proteins
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