Journal Article

Effects of Dietary Zinc on Carcass Traits, Meat Quality, Antioxidant Status, and Tissue Zinc Accumulation of Pekin Ducks

Jia, Gang, Wen, Min, Wu, Bing, Liu, Guangmang, Cai, Jingyi, Tian, Gang, Chen, Xiaoling, Zhao, Hua

2019

Overview

This study investigated the effects of dietary zinc on carcass traits, meat quality, antioxidant capacity, and tissue zinc accumulation of Pekin ducks. A total of 768 1-day-old Pekin ducks were randomly allocated to six dietary treatments and penned in groups of 16 with 8 pens per treatment. Ducks were fed a basal corn-soybean meal diet supplemented with graded levels of zinc sulfate (0, 15, 30, 60, 120, 240 mg zinc/kg) for 35 days. The slaughter weight, carcass weight, eviscerated weight, and breast and leg muscle weight of Pekin ducks were increased with increasing dietary zinc levels ( P  < 0.05). Zinc supplementation increased the pH value at 24-h postmortem and the intramuscular fat (IMF) ( P  < 0.05), but decreased the lightness value, drip loss, and shear force in breast meat of ducks ( P  < 0.05). Increasing dietary zinc increased the activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPX), glutathione reductase (GR), catalase (CAT), and the content of glutathione (GSH), as well as decreased the malondialdehyde (MDA) level in breast muscle ( P  < 0.05). RT-qPCR analysis demonstrated that supplemental zinc notably enhanced the transcription of SOD, GPX, GR, CAT, and nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) ( P  < 0.05). Meanwhile, zinc accumulation in plasma, breast muscle, liver, and tibia were linearly increased with increasing zinc supplementation ( P  < 0.05). These results indicated that zinc supplementation could improve carcass traits and meat quality and increase the activities and mRNA levels of antioxidant enzymes in breast muscle of Pekin duck. Base on broken-line regression analysis that 91.32 mg/kg of dietary zinc was suggested for optimal carcass traits, meat quality, antioxidant capacity, and zinc deposition of Pekin duck.

• Publisher: Springer US,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Accumulation / antioxidant activity / antioxidant enzymes / Antioxidants / Aquatic birds / Bioaccumulation / Biochemistry / Biomedical and Life Sciences / Biotechnology / Breast / breast meat / Breast muscle / breasts / Capacity / carcass weight / Carcasses / Catalase / Cattle / Corn / corn meal / dietary mineral supplements / Dietary supplements / drip loss / ducks / enzyme activity / Glutathione / Glutathione peroxidase / Glutathione reductase / glutathione-disulfide reductase / intramuscular fat / Life Sciences / Liver / Malondialdehyde / Meat / Meat quality / messenger RNA / Muscles / Nutrition / Oncology / Pekin / Peroxidase / Physical growth / quantitative polymerase chain reaction / Regression analysis / reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction / slaughter weight / soybean meal / Soybeans / Superoxide dismutase / Tibia / Tissue / Transcription / Waterfowl / Weaning / Weight / Zinc / Zinc sulfate