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Conjugated linoleic acid (c9, t11 CLA) is a dietary fatty acid produced mainly by ruminant animals and exhibits promising health-promoting biological effects. For lipid fatty acid composition analyses, including CLA, lipids must be pre-treated so that the free and esterified fatty acids (triacylglycerols, phospholipids, etc) are available for determination. The most common treatments involve fatty acid methyl ester derivatives from relatively simple chemical reactions, but this becomes complicated when esterification of CLA is involved because of potential changes in its positional and geometrical isomers by reaction with certain reagents. In this review we explain concisely the advantages and disadvantages of the most popular methods (acid-and base-catalysed methods) generally employed for total fatty acid derivatization and their determination on a gas chromatograph. Based on our experiences we put forward the (trimethylsilyl)diazomethane method as an alternative and successful approach for ruminant tissue lipid determinations.

Fatty acid (FA) composition of intramuscular (IM, Longissimus thoracis muscle), intermuscular (IT) and subcutaneous (SC) fat of one hundred intensively fed yearling bulls with different propensities to fatten were studied. Meat samples were collected from Asturiana de los Valles bulls with different genotypes with respect to the myostatin gene (mh/mh n = 24, mh/+ n = 26 and +/+ n = 25) and from Asturiana de la Montañ a (n = 25) bulls lacking the mutation responsible for double muscling and characterised by small to mediumframe size adapted to less favoured mountain areas. FA profiles were expressed as percentages of total FA (g/100 g of total FA) and organised into groups (saturated (SFA), branched (BFA), monounsaturated (MUFA), C18:1trans, polyunsaturated (PUFA), n À 6, n À 3, conjugated linoleic acids (CLA), unsaturated (UFA)) and ratios (MUFA/SFA (M/S), PUFA/SFA (P/S), UFA/SFA (U/S), n À 6/n À 3).The IT depot was the most saturated and SC depot contained the most monounsaturated FAs, while IM fat had the most polyunsaturated FAs. IM fat showed the highest P/S ratio and for the n À 6/n À 3 ratio there were no significant differences between adipose tissue depots.In general, genotype effects were more pronounced in IM and SC fat profiles compared to the IT depot, for which no significant differences between genotypes were found in SFA, PUFA (including n À 6 and n À 3), UFA and most of the ratios. IM fat of mh/mh animals had the highest content of PUFA and thus the highest P/S ratio. Accordingly, the presence of the gene causing double muscling influenced the tendency to deposit carcass fat and its FA composition, mainly in IM fat. In general, when carcass fat decreased, SFA content decreased while PUFA and UFA contents increased due to the changes in their percentages.

The influence of breed and mh-genotype on carcass conformation, meat physico-chemical characteristics and the fatty acid profile of muscle were studied. Samples from 16 yearling bulls from "Asturiana de los Valles" (AV, n=12) and "Asturiana de la Montaña" (AM, n=4) were collected. AV animals were classified into three groups according to the presence of the gene causing double-muscling (AV double-muscled (mh/mh), n=4; AV heterozygous (mh/+), n=4; AV normal (+/+), n=4). Double-muscled animals displayed better carcass traits, lower total fat (comprised of subcutaneous (SC), intermuscular (IT) and intramuscular (IM) deposits), higher lean, moisture and drip loss, and lighter meat than AV normal animals. Heterozygous animals showed intermediate characteristics. AM animals, being a more rustic and smaller breed, showed lower conformation, higher total fat (SC, IT and IM), lower moisture and darker meat. According to the intramuscular fatty acid profile, mh/mh animals showed a lower proportion of SFA and MUFA, and a higher proportion of PUFA with an equal proportion of CLA in total fatty acid content. The P/S ratio increased with increasing number of mh alleles (or double-muscling character), while no differences between animal groups were found for the n-6/n-3 ratio.

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