Here, we newly provided the parameters for estimating meat quality in live pigs using the muscle biopsy. The biopsied longissimus thoracis muscle was used to identify the muscle fibre characteristics (MFCs). Of the various MFCs in biopsied muscle, muscle fibre number (MFN) composition showed the greatest correlation with the MFCs in postmortem muscle (P < 0.001). Moreover, the pigs cluster groups, based on the biopsied MFN composition, demonstrated statistically significant differences in meat quality traits such as muscle pH, drip loss, and meat colour (P < 0.05). Therefore, we conclude that the MFN parameters in live pigs are closely related to the postmortem muscle metabolic rate and ultimately with the quality of meat. We suggest that the higher type I and lower type IIB MFN in biopsied muscle will result in better pork quality.

在这里，我们新提供了使用肌肉活检估算生猪肉质的参数。活检后的胸最长肌被用来识别肌纤维特征（MFCs）。在活检肌肉中的各种MFC中，肌肉纤维数量（MFN）组成与死后肌肉中的MFC具有最大的相关性（P  <0.001）。此外，根据活检的MFN组成，猪群组在肉质特征（如肌肉pH，滴水损失和肉色）上显示出统计学上的显着差异（P <0.05）。因此，我们得出的结论是，活猪的MFN参数与死后肌肉代谢率密切相关，并最终与肉质密切相关。我们建议活检肌肉中较高的I型和较低的IIB型MFN将使猪肉质量更好。