Low-protein diets supplemented with glycine improves pig growth performance and meat quality: An untargeted metabolomic analysis

Shengwang Jiang; Wei Quan; Jie Luo; Aihua Lou; Xihong Zhou; Fengna Li; Qingwu W Shen

doi:10.3389/fvets.2023.1170573

Low-protein diets supplemented with glycine improves pig growth performance and meat quality: An untargeted metabolomic analysis

Front Vet Sci. 2023 Apr 18:10:1170573. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2023.1170573. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Shengwang Jiang^{1

2}, Wei Quan¹, Jie Luo¹, Aihua Lou¹, Xihong Zhou³, Fengna Li³, Qingwu W Shen¹

Affiliations

¹ College of Food Science and Technology, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha, Hunan, China.
² College of Animal Science, Xichang University, Xichang, Sichuan, China.
³ Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changsha, Hunan, China.

Abstract

For the purpose to improve meat quality, pigs were fed a normal diet (ND), a low protein diet (LPD) and a LPD supplemented with glycine (LPDG). Chemical and metabolomic analyses showed that LPD increased IMF deposition and the activities of GPa and PK, but decreased glycogen content, the activities of CS and CcO, and the abundance of acetyl-CoA, tyrosine and its metabolites in muscle. LPDG promoted muscle fiber transition from type II to type I, increased the synthesis of multiple nonessential amino acids, and pantothenic acid in muscle, which should contributed to the improved meat quality and growth rate. This study provides some new insight into the mechanism of diet induced alteration of animal growth performance and meat quality. In addition, the study shows that dietary supplementation of glycine to LPD could be used to improved meat quality without impairment of animal growth.

Keywords: glycine; growing-finishing pigs; low protein diet; meat quality; metabolomics.