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Animals
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Muscle Growth and Development in Farm Animals
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Muscle Growth and Development in Farm Animals

A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 September 2022) | Viewed by 11056

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Delin Mo

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
Interests: meat production of farm animals; animal skeletal muscle development; genetic regulation of skeletal muscle development; determination of muscle fiber type; primary and secondary muscle fiber formation; proliferation and differentiation of muscle cells; metabolic regulation in skeletal muscle

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Since the formation of human farming civilization, farm animals have been closely associated with human survival. During the development of human civilization, farm animals supplied human with products including meat, eggs, milk, fur, bones and other products. Among them, meat is the main product of farm animals and provides most of the high-quality protein for humans. In today's increasingly developed life sciences, research on the influence of muscle development on meat production through various modern technologies has been very extensive. Skeletal muscle is the largest metabolic organ in animal bodies, and it is the most abundant and highly complex tissue in vertebrates. Although after a long period of selection and breeding of farm animal species, the meat production of farm animals has been greatly improved compared to wild species, there is still space for improvement in the meat production. Although meat production is extremely important, the mechanism of muscle development regulation is not well understood.

For instance, the determinants of primary and secondary muscle fiber formation, the transformation of muscle fiber types, the time of myoblast proliferation and differentiation in the embryonic stage and its regulatory mechanism, etc. In this issue, we provide a platform for publishing the muscle growth and development of farm animals, focusing on the high-level research on the embryonic development of farm animals, the proliferation and differentiation of muscle cells from different varieties, the formation of primary and secondary muscle fibers, the transformation and determination of muscle fiber types, and the regulatory mechanism of skeletal muscle metabolism. Contributions to research on muscle development in farm animals applicable to the above aspects are welcome.

Prof. Dr. Delin Mo
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • farm animals
  • genetic
  • breeding
  • meat production
  • muscle growth
  • muscle formation
  • muscle fiber types
  • muscle cell differentiation
  • muscle cell proliferation
  • muscle cell fusion

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 11928 KiB  
Article
The Effects of Dietary Inclusion of Mulberry Leaf Powder on Growth Performance, Carcass Traits and Meat Quality of Tibetan Pigs
by Sutian Wang, Cuiming Tang, Jianhao Li, Zhenjiang Wang, Fanming Meng, Guoqing Luo, Haiyun Xin, Jianwu Zhong, Yuan Wang, Baohong Li, Zhiyi Li, Lian Chen, Bin Hu and Sen Lin
Animals 2022, 12(20), 2743; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12202743 - 12 Oct 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1780
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 [...] Read more.
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. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Muscle Growth and Development in Farm Animals)
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9 pages, 1000 KiB  
Communication
Effects of Sex on the Muscle Development and Meat Composition in Wuliangshan Black-Bone Chickens
by Zhengmiao Ou, Yanyan Shi, Qingqing Li, Yun Wu and Fenfen Chen
Animals 2022, 12(19), 2565; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12192565 - 26 Sep 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1510
Abstract
This study was conducted to illustrate the morphological features of the breast and thigh muscles at four developmental stages (1, 42, 84, and 126 days of age) of Wuliangshan Black-bone chickens and to compare the chemical composition, fatty acid, and amino acid contents [...] Read more.
This study was conducted to illustrate the morphological features of the breast and thigh muscles at four developmental stages (1, 42, 84, and 126 days of age) of Wuliangshan Black-bone chickens and to compare the chemical composition, fatty acid, and amino acid contents of their meat at 126 days of age (D126). In total, 80 chickens (male, n = 40 and female, n = 40) in the sixth generation from the breeding farm were used in the experiment under free-range rearing conditions. The cross-sectional areas (CSA) of muscle fibers and meat composition were compared between different sex and different muscle types. The results showed that gender did not affect the CSA of the breast muscle fibers but did affect the CSA of the thigh muscle fibers at D42, D84, and D126 (p < 0.05). Muscle types affected the CSA of muscle fibers: male chickens exhibited significantly higher values than female chickens at D42, D84, and D126 (p < 0.05). The results of moisture, crude protein, and crude fat at D126 showed that moisture contents were higher in the thigh muscles than in the breast muscles in male and female chickens (p < 0.05). Gender affected the crude protein contents and crude fat contents: the breast muscle crude protein content was significantly higher than that in the thigh muscle, both in males and females (p < 0.05), whereas the crude fat contents were significantly higher in females than in males (p < 0.05); moreover, the thigh muscle fat contents were significantly higher than those of the breast muscles both in males and females (p < 0.05). Gender and muscle types also affected the fatty acid contents: the PUFA contents of the breast and thigh muscles were significantly higher in male than in female chickens (p < 0.05). Muscle types significantly influenced the total EAA, NEAA, and flavor amino acid contents. The total EAA contents of the breast muscles were significantly higher than those of the thigh muscles in males and females (p < 0.05), whereas the total NEAA and total flavor amino acid contents of the thigh muscles were significantly higher than those of the breast muscles (p < 0.05). Our results may lead to a better understanding of the effects of gender on the breast and thigh muscle development and meat composition of Wuliangshan Black-bone chicken. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Muscle Growth and Development in Farm Animals)
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15 pages, 6957 KiB  
Article
Myogenic Determination and Differentiation of Chicken Bone Marrow-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells under Different Inductive Agents
by Zhen Zhou, Changbin Zhao, Bolin Cai, Manting Ma, Shaofen Kong, Jing Zhang, Xiquan Zhang and Qinghua Nie
Animals 2022, 12(12), 1531; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12121531 - 13 Jun 2022
Viewed by 2327
Abstract
Poultry plays an important role in the meat consumer market and is significant to further understanding the potential mechanism of muscle development in the broiler. Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) can provide critical insight into muscle development due to their multi-lineage differentiation [...] Read more.
Poultry plays an important role in the meat consumer market and is significant to further understanding the potential mechanism of muscle development in the broiler. Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) can provide critical insight into muscle development due to their multi-lineage differentiation potential. To our knowledge, chicken BM-MSCs demonstrate limited myogenic differentiation potential under the treatment with dexamethasone (DXMS) and hydrocortisone (HC). 5-azacytidine (5-Aza), a DNA demethylating agent, which has been widely used in the myogenic differentiation of BM-MSCs in other species. There is no previous report that applies 5-Aza to myogenic-induced differentiation of chicken BM-MSCs. In this study, we evaluated the myogenic determination and differentiation effect of BM-MSCs under different inductive agents. BM-MSCs showed better differentiation potential under the 5-Aza-treatment. Transcriptome sequence analysis identified 2402 differentially expressed DEGs including 28 muscle-related genes after 5-Aza-treatment. The DEGs were significantly enriched in Gene Ontology database terms, including in the cell plasma membrane, molecular binding, and cell cycle and differentiation. KEGG pathway analysis revealed that DEGs were enriched in myogenic differentiation-associated pathways containing the PI3K-Akt signaling pathway, the TGF-β signaling pathway, Arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy, dilated cardiomyopathy, and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which suggested that BM-MSCs differentiated into a muscle-like phenotype under 5-Aza-treatment. Although BM-MSCs have not formed myotubes in our study, it is worthy of further study. In summary, our study lays the foundation for constructing a myogenic determination and differentiation model in chicken BM-MSCs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Muscle Growth and Development in Farm Animals)
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14 pages, 4359 KiB  
Article
CircMGA Depresses Myoblast Proliferation and Promotes Myotube Formation through miR-144-5p/FAP Signal
by Zhijun Wang, Min Zhang, Kan Li, Yangfeng Chen, Danfeng Cai, Biao Chen and Qinghua Nie
Animals 2022, 12(7), 873; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12070873 - 30 Mar 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1927
Abstract
Circular RNAs are endogenous and abundant in skeletal muscle, and may not only be involved in regulating gene expression in a variety of ways, but also function as important regulators in poultry muscle development. Our previous research found that circMGA was differentially expressed [...] Read more.
Circular RNAs are endogenous and abundant in skeletal muscle, and may not only be involved in regulating gene expression in a variety of ways, but also function as important regulators in poultry muscle development. Our previous research found that circMGA was differentially expressed during chicken muscle embryo development; however, as a novel circular RNA, the regulating mechanism of circMGA in myogenesis has never been studied before. In this study, we aimed to investigate the functional roles and related molecular mechanisms of circMGA in chicken primary myoblast cells. CircMGA originated from the exon 13–14 of MGA gene, was differentially expressed during embryo development and myogenesis differentiation, and could inhibit myoblast cell proliferation by repressing cell cycle related genes and promote myotube formation through MyoD and MyHC. Biotin-labeled miRNA pulldown assay and luciferase reporter assay result showed that miR-144-5p could directly target circMGA and FAP, indicating that there could be a competing endogenous RNA mechanism between circMGA and FAP. In function, miR-144-5p showed opposite regulation in myoblast cell with circMGA and FAP, just as expected. circMGA co-transfected with miR-144-5p or si-FAP could effectively eliminate the inhibition of miR-144-5p on myoblast proliferation and differentiation. In conclusion, we found a novel circRNA, named circMGA, which generated from the 13–14 exon of the MGA gene, and could inhibit myoblast proliferation and promote myotube formation by acting as the sponge of miR-144-5p and through miR-144-5p/FAP signal. Moreover, circMGA could effectively eliminate the inhibition of miR-144-5p on myoblast differentiation, thus releasing FAP and promoting myotube formation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Muscle Growth and Development in Farm Animals)
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9 pages, 4589 KiB  
Communication
Differential Expression of MSTN Isoforms in Muscle between Broiler and Layer Chickens
by Dong-Hwan Kim, Young Min Choi, Joonbum Lee, Sangsu Shin, Sanggu Kim, Yeunsu Suh and Kichoon Lee
Animals 2022, 12(5), 539; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12050539 - 22 Feb 2022
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2355
Abstract
Myostatin (Mstn)-A, the main isoform among Mstn splicing variants, functions as a negative regulator, whereas Mstn-B functions as a positive regulator in muscle development. Because broiler chickens are a fast-growing breed raised for meat production and layer chickens are a slow-growing breed raised [...] Read more.
Myostatin (Mstn)-A, the main isoform among Mstn splicing variants, functions as a negative regulator, whereas Mstn-B functions as a positive regulator in muscle development. Because broiler chickens are a fast-growing breed raised for meat production and layer chickens are a slow-growing breed raised for egg production, differences in the expression of Mstn isoforms between the two distinct breeds were analyzed in this study. There was no difference in the expression levels of total Mstn (Mstn-A and -B forms) during embryonic development and at D33 between the two breeds. Interestingly, the ratios of Mstn-B to -A were significantly higher in the broiler compared to the layer at most ages. In pectoralis major muscle (PM) tissue, the cross-sectional area (CSA) of muscle fiber was significantly greater in the broiler. The broiler also showed greater bundle CSA and a similar fiber number per bundle compared to the layer at D5 and D33. These data suggest that the greater bundle CSA with myofiber hypertrophy in the broilers is associated with greater muscle growth. The relationship between the expression of Mstn isoforms and growth rate can be used as a potential genetic marker for the selection of higher muscle growth in chickens. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Muscle Growth and Development in Farm Animals)
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