Effects of coated cysteamine on growth performance, carcass characteristics, meat quality and lipid metabolism in finishing pigs

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anifeedsci.2020.114480Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Coated cysteamine (CCS) did not affect growth performance of finishing pigs.

  • CCS had beneficial effects on carcass lean percentage and longissmus muscle area.

  • An appropriate level of CCS was able to increase growth hormone levels in serum.

  • An appropriate level of CCS was able to reduce somatostatin levels in serum.

  • CCS affected related enzyme activity in subcutaneous adipose tissue.

Abstract

This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of coated cysteamine (CCS) on growth performance, carcass characteristics, meat quality, and lipid metabolism in finishing pigs. A total of 160 pigs (62.12 ± 1.43 kg body weight) were randomly divided into 4 groups, with 4 pens per group and 10 pigs (5 gilts and 5 barrows) per pen. Pigs were fed a basal diet supplemented with 0, 100, 200, or 400 mg/kg CCS, corresponding to 0, 27, 54, or 108 mg/kg cysteamine, respectively. All pigs were given free access to feed and water for forty days. Average daily gain, average daily feed intake and feed to gain ratio were not affected by the CCS treatment. Supplemental CCS increased carcass lean ratio linearly (P < 0.05) and longissmus muscle area quadratically (P < 0.05), and the water-holding capacity as measured by 24 h drip loss was quadratically affected (P < 0.05) by CCS supplementation. The activity of hormone-sensitive lipase in subcutaneous adipose tissue was linearly increased (P < 0.001), while fatty acid synthase activity was linearly decreased (P < 0.05). Pigs fed CCS had a lower serum triacylglycerol (P < 0.001) level and lipase activity (P < 0.001), lower total cholesterol (P < 0.05) level, and a higher total protein (P < 0.001) and free fatty acids (P < 0.01) levels. In addition, CCS quadratically increased serum growth hormone (GH) (P < 0.001) level and quadratically affected somatostatin (SS) (P < 0.05) level. Consistently, significant effects of dietary CCS were observed on the mRNA expression of GH and SS in the anterior pituitary gland and the hypothalamus, respectively, where the intermediate CCS level showed the highest GH mRNA level and lowest SS mRNA level. The results indicate that dietary supplementation of CCS has beneficial effects on carcass characteristics and meat quality, and affects lipid metabolism in finishing pigs.

Introduction

The economics of pig production is influenced by carcass characteristics and meat quality. Fattening pigs have a strong capacity to increase their subcutaneous fat deposition when they are fed ad libitum, which may affect their carcass quality traits (Shi et al., 2019). The intramuscular fat content and its fatty acid composition are both critical for various meat quality attributes such as muscle color, tenderness, water-holding capacity, thus affecting the pork consumption (Wood et al., 2008; Joo et al., 2013). Therefore, strategies with interest in reducing fat deposition in subcutaneous tissue without affecting growth and meat quality are becoming more relevant for the pig industry (Doran et al., 2006). Cysteamine (CS) was reported to exhibit beneficial effect on growth performance in pigs, chickens and fish (Xiao and Lin, 2003a; Yang et al., 2006; Dunshea, 2007; Hu et al., 2008). Previous experiments have demonstrated that CS can work as a specific inhibitor of somatostatin (SS) to affect the endocrine system and increase growth hormone (GH) secretion (Bertherat et al., 1995; McLeod et al., 1995; Xiao and Lin, 2003b). GH promotes animal growth and exhibits several biological functions through insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I), and IGF-I can stimulate amino acid uptake and protein synthesis in muscles (Sacheck et al., 2004), which leads to muscle growth promotion and decreased fat deposition (Etherton, 2000; Chilliard et al., 2001). Some studies have showed that CS could increase carcass lean percentage (Yang et al., 2005; Zhou et al., 2015), although little research has been conducted to investigate the effect of CS on lipid metabolism.

The CS used in this study was a fat-coated microencapsulated source with the aim of protecting, stabilize and reduce its release (Anal and Singh, 2007; De Prisco and Mauriello, 2016) due to CS is easily oxidized when it is exposed to the air or in the presence of alkaline and metal ions (Jeitner and Lawrence, 2001), and also CS has a characteristic smell that may affect feed palatability. The recent development of the coated CS (CCS) makes CS possess a better pharmacokinetic and safety profile, thus enables the drug to be released slowly in the intestinal tract and prolongs its effectiveness (Besouw et al., 2013). However, there is very limited information on the use of CCS in finishing pig diets.

Therefore, the objective of the present study was to evaluate the effects of dietary supplementation of CCS on growth performance, carcass characteristics, meat quality and lipid metabolism in finishing pigs.

Section snippets

Animals and dietary treatments

The experimental protocol was previously approved by the Animal Care and Use Committee of the College of Animal Science, Zhejiang University (Hangzhou, China).

A total of 160 Duroc (♂) × [Landrace (♂) × Yorkshire (♀)] finishing pigs (80 gilts and 80 barrows) with an average initial body weight of 62.12 ± 1.43 kg were randomly assigned into four dietary treatments, with four pens per treatment and ten pigs (5 gilts and 5 barrows) per pen. Pigs were fed a basal diet supplemented with 0, 100, 200,

Growth performance

Effects of dietary CCS supplementation on growth performance in finishing pigs are shown in Table 3. There was no statistical significant difference (P > 0.05) in ADG, ADFI, and F:G among all groups.

Carcass characteristics and meat quality

Effects of dietary CCS supplementation on carcass characteristics and meat quality in finishing pigs are presented in Table 4. Dietary CCS did not affect (P > 0.05) the dressing percentage, fat percentage and backfat thickness. Lean percentage was linearly increased (P < 0.05) with increasing CCS

Discussion

In this study, the ADG, ADFI and F:G of finishing pigs were unaffected by the dietary supplementation of CCS. Previous experiments have demonstrated that a suitable dietary level of CS supplementation may significantly improve growth performance in piglets and growing pigs, but it was not obvious in finishing pigs (Xia et al., 2005; Deng et al., 2009; Du et al., 2012). It may be related to growth characteristics of animals that they grow rapidly in the early stage, whereas their growth speed

Conclusions

The present results indicated that optimal dietary supplementation of coated cysteamine increased carcass lean percentage and longissmus muscle area, and it had beneficial effects on 24 h drip loss in finishing pig. Coated cysteamine increased the enzyme activity related to lipid catabolism in subcutaneous adipose, whereas it decreased the enzyme activity involved in the process of fat synthesis. Coated cysteamine was able to have an effect on gene expression of growth hormone and somatostatin,

CRediT authorship contribution statement

W.J. Tao: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. L.J. Liu: Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation. H. Li: Formal analysis, Resources. X. Pei: Visualization, Data curation. G. Wang: Visualization, Data curation. Z.P. Xiao: Software. R. Yu: Project administration. Z.F. Li: Supervision. M.Q. Wang: Conceptualization, Project administration, Funding acquisition.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest in this research paper.

Acknowledgments

The authors are very thankful to the staff of the ZhengXin animal husbandry (Zhejiang, China) for care of the pigs. The technical assistance from Cargill China Expert Wang Hui was gratefully appreciated. This study was made possible by a grant from Hangzhou King Techina Technology Co., Ltd, Hangzhou (China) (No. 12-518001-006).

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