Effect of Dietary Lysine on the Gene Expression Profile of Skeletal Muscle in Finishing Pigs. Sus scrofa

The main goal of swine production is to convert feedstuffs into edible meat whose major component is skeletal muscle. The overall objective of this project is to study the effect of dietary lysine on the gene expression profile of skeletal muscle in late stage finishing pigs. The hypothesis for this is that adequate or excess level of dietary lysine will change the expression levels of numerous genes, and these changes are in favor of muscle protein accretion and are associated with various blood metabolites and growth performance parameters. Overall design: Three experimental (lysine-deficient, lysine-adequate, lysine-excess) diets were respectively fed to 3 groups of pigs (initial body weight, ~95 kg/pig; 3 pigs/group) for a total of 5 weeks.

生猪养殖的核心目标是将饲料转化为可食用肉类，而该肉类的主要组成成分为骨骼肌（skeletal muscle）。本项目的总体目标是探究日粮赖氨酸（dietary lysine）对育肥后期猪骨骼肌基因表达谱的影响。本研究的假说为：当日粮赖氨酸水平适宜或过量时，将改变大量基因的表达水平；此类表达变化有利于肌肉蛋白质沉积，且与多种血液代谢物及生长性能指标存在关联。实验设计：将3种试验日粮（赖氨酸缺乏组、赖氨酸适宜组、赖氨酸过量组）分别饲喂给3组育肥猪（初始体重约95kg/头，每组3头），试验周期总计5周。