China Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine ›› 2021, Vol. 48 ›› Issue (9): 3191-3199.doi: 10.16431/j.cnki.1671-7236.2021.09.009

• Physiology and Biochemistry • Previous Articles     Next Articles

An Overview of Skeletal Muscle Fiber Characteristics and Developmental Mechanism of Livestock and Poultry

SHI Hongmei, HE Yang, DU Yanli, LIU Yong, DOU Tengfei, WANG Kun, JIA Junjing, GE Changrong   

  1. Faculty of Animal Science and Technology, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming 650201, China
  • Received:2021-01-27 Online:2021-09-20 Published:2021-09-17

Abstract: Skeletal muscle is an important part of biological body, accounting for about 40% of the body of meat producing animals. It is closely related to sports, development, meat production performance and other important economic traits of livestock and poultry. Multinucleated muscle fiber is the basic unit of skeletal muscle which is composed with parallel myofibrils, and the numbers, types and the transform of muscle fiber reflect the individual muscle development and physiological conditions directly which lead it to act an important economy trait being concerned in breeding. The study to muscle fibers in-depth will contribute in breeding process and helpful for exploring and handles of the causes of myopathies that frequently appear in recent years, some extent, to alleviate the economic losses caused by myopathies to livestock and poultry industry, and meet the demand of consumers for high-quality meat products. In recent years, the understanding of muscle fiber and the research has achieved great progress, including in accordance with the structure and function of the muscle fiber characteristics to predict and verify the biological functions of the skeletal muscle and the relationships between muscle fiber types with meat quality, on the other hand, the important regulation molecules of muscle fibers during occurred and regeneration repair were digged out and defined their functions with the development of technology and the application of animal models. In this paper, the structure and function of muscle fiber were systematically described according to the existing researches and the occurrence and development of muscle fiber during embryonic period as well as the regeneration and repair after birth were sorted out from the molecular level, so as to provide theoretical reference for improving meat production performance of meat animals and breeding new varieties or strains of high-quality meat producing animals in the future.

Key words: skeletal muscle; muscle fibers; muscle fiber structure; muscle fiber development

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