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. 2022 Oct 12;12(20):2743.
doi: 10.3390/ani12202743.

The Effects of Dietary Inclusion of Mulberry Leaf Powder on Growth Performance, Carcass Traits and Meat Quality of Tibetan Pigs

Sutian Wang  1 , Cuiming Tang  2 , Jianhao Li  1   3 , Zhenjiang Wang  2 , Fanming Meng  1 , Guoqing Luo  2 , Haiyun Xin  1 , Jianwu Zhong  2 , Yuan Wang  2 , Baohong Li  1 , Zhiyi Li  2 , Lian Chen  2 , Bin Hu  1 , Sen Lin  2
Affiliations

The Effects of Dietary Inclusion of Mulberry Leaf Powder on Growth Performance, Carcass Traits and Meat Quality of Tibetan Pigs

Sutian Wang et al. Animals (Basel). .

Abstract

This research was conducted to study the effects of dietary inclusion of mulberry leaf powder (MLP) on growth performance, meat quality, antioxidant activity, and carcass traits of Tibetan pigs. Eighteen Tibetan pigs (33.8 ± 1.1 kg) were assigned to two treatment groups randomly and received either the control diet (CON) or a basal diet containing 8% MLP (MLP) for two months. After the two-month feeding trial, the MLP group showed lower backfat thickness while a higher lean percentage. Compared with CON pigs, MLP pigs had higher serum CAT activity. In addition, dietary MLP supplementation significantly decreased the muscle shear force. Muscle fiber morphology analysis showed that MLP pigs had larger muscle fiber density while smaller muscle fiber cross-sectional area. Up-regulated gene expression of myosin heavy chain (MyHC)IIa was also observed in MLP pigs. These results indicate that the enhanced antioxidant activity and altered muscle fiber type and morphology appeared to contribute to the improvement of meat quality in Tibetan pigs fed diets containing MLP.

Keywords: Tibetan pigs; antioxidant activity; lean percentage; meat quality; mulberry leaf powder; muscle fiber.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Effect of dietary supplementation with mulberry leaf powder (MLP) on serum antioxidant parameters in Tibetan pigs. Data are expressed as means ± SEM. * indicates a significant difference (p < 0.05) between the MLP group and the control (CON) group. N = 9.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Effect of dietary supplementation with mulberry leaf powder (MLP) on histological characteristics of longissimus thoracis (LT) muscle in Tibetan pigs. (A) H&E staining determined the fiber density and fiber cross-sectional area of LT muscle in Tibetan pigs. (B) Representative images showing histological characteristics of LT muscle. Data are expressed as means ± SEM. * indicates a significant difference (p < 0.05) between the MLP group and the control (CON) group. N = 6.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Effect of dietary supplementation with mulberry leaf powder (MLP) on muscle fiber type conversion in longissimus thoracis (LT) muscle of Tibetan pigs. (A) Immunofluorescence analyzed the percentage of fast-twitch (red) and slow-twitch (green) fibers in the longissimus thoracis (LT) muscle of Tibetan pigs. (B) Representative images showing fiber types in LT muscle. Data are expressed as means ± SEM. N = 6.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Effect of dietary supplementation with mulberry leaf powder (MLP) on mRNA expression of myosin heavy-chain (MyHC) isoform genes in longissimus thoracis (LT) muscle of Tibetan pigs. Data are expressed as means ± SEM. * indicates a significant difference (p < 0.05) between the MLP group and the control (CON) group. N = 6.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Effect of dietary supplementation with mulberry leaf powder (MLP) on the protein level of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ coactivator-1α (PGC1-α) in longissimus thoracis (LT) muscle of Tibetan pigs. Data are expressed as means ± SEM. * indicates a significant difference (p < 0.05) between the MLP group and the control (CON) group. N = 6.
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