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Nutrient Metabolism

Early Postnatal Food Intake Alters Myofiber Maturation in Pig Skeletal Muscle¹

Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), Unité Mixte de Recherche sur le Veau et le Porc (UMRVP), 35590 Saint-Gilles, France

²To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: louis.lefaucheur{at}rennes.inra.fr

We examined the effects of undernutrition on muscle development during the first postnatal week in pigs. Eighteen piglets were subjected to three nutritional levels (300, 200 or 100 g/(kg body · d) of colostrum then milk) between birth and slaughter at 7 d of age. Longissimus lumborum (LL), a fast-twitch glycolytic muscle, and rhomboideus (RH), a mixed slow- and fast-twitch oxido-glycolytic muscle, were taken for myofiber typing and biochemical analyses. Enzyme activities of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), citrate synthase (CS) and ß-hydroxy-acyl-CoA-dehydrogenase (HAD) were used as markers of glycolytic, oxidative and lipid ß-oxidation capacities, respectively. Undernutrition selectively decreased (P < 0.001) hypertrophy of the future fast-twitch glycolytic fibers in LL. Contractile and metabolic maturation was delayed in the later maturing LL, as reflected by a decrease in muscle protein concentration (P < 0.01), an increase (P < 0.05) in the percentage of myofibers still expressing the fetal myosin heavy chain (MyHC), a lower postnatal increase in LDH activity (P < 0.001) and a delayed decrease in the percentage of IIa MyHC positive fibers (P < 0.001). Otherwise, restriction tended (P < 0.10) to increase the percentage of slow type I MyHC containing fibers in both muscles and of -cardiac MyHC positive fibers in RH (P < 0.05). The LDH/CS ratio decreased dramatically (P < 0.001) after restriction, to a greater extent in LL than in RH. These changes denoted a more oxidative metabolism using fewer carbohydrates and more lipids in restricted pigs, as suggested by the increased activity of HAD (P < 0.001) and decreased respiratory quotient (P < 0.001).

KEY WORDS: • myosin heavy chain isoforms • metabolic enzymes • fiber type • undernutrition • swine

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