Growth Performance, Meat Quality and Fatty Acid Metabolism Response of Growing Meat Rabbits to Dietary Linoleic Acid

An experiment was conducted to determine the effects of different amounts of dietary linoleic acid (LA) on growth performance, serum biochemical traits, meat quality, fatty acids composition of muscle and liver, acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC) and carnitine palmitoyl transferase 1 (CPT 1) mRNA expression in the liver of 9 wks old to 13 wks old growing meat rabbits. One hundred and fifty 9 wks old meat rabbits were allocated to individual cages and randomly divided into five groups. Animals in each group were fed with a diet with the following LA addition concentrations: 0, 3, 6, 9 and 12 g/kg diet (as-fed basis) and LA concentrations were 0.84, 1.21, 1.34, 1.61 and 1.80% in the diet, respectively. The results showed as follows: the dietary LA levels significantly affected muscle color of LL included a* and b* of experimental rabbits (p<0.05). The linear effect of LA on serum high density lipoprotein cholesterol was obtained (p = 0.0119). The saturated fatty acids (SFAs) and monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) contents of LL decreased and the polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) content of LL increased with dietary LA increase (p<0.0001). The PUFA n-6 content and PUFA n-3 content in the LL was significantly affected by the dietary LA levels (p<0.01, p<0.05). The MUFAs content in the liver decreased and the PUFAs contents in the liver increased with dietary LA increase (p<0.0001). The PUFA n-6 content and the PUFA n-6/n-3 ratio in the liver increased and PUFA n-3 content in the liver decreased with dietary LA increase (p<0.01). The linear effect of LA on CPT 1 mRNA expression in the liver was obtained (p = 0.0081). In summary, dietary LA addition had significant effects on liver and muscle fatty acid composition (increased PUFAs) of 9 wks old to 13 wks old growing meat rabbits, but had little effects on growth performance, meat physical traits and mRNA expression of liver relative enzyme of experimental rabbits.