An international study on the importance of androstenone and skatole for boar taint: levels of androstenone and skatole by country and season

Walstra, P.; Claudi-Magnussen, C.; Chevillon, Patrick; Seth, Gertrud von; Diestre, A.; Matthews, Kim; Homer, Dawn; Bonneau, Michel

doi:10.1016/s0301-6226(99)00054-8

Cited by 133 publications

(93 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…The results for skatole in the present work show that only 9% of entire males had a level of skatole above the threshold for boar taint. These results are not consistent with the finding of the international study, which reported that around 15% of entire males have skatole level above the threshold (Walstra et al, 1999). This discrepancy between the results may be due a number of factors such as the use of different techniques for skatole measurement.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…In the present study, around 32% of the entire male pigs showed androstenone levels above the commonly used threshold for boar taint perception. These results are in agreement with the data of the international study where over 4000 fat samples from entire males from six European countries were analysed (Walstra et al, 1999). The percentage of pigs with medium androstenone level (0.5 to 1.0 mg/g) was higher in the present study compared with data for the UK pigs in the European study (59% v. 30.9%).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…However, results in the literature regarding the relationship between carcass weight and skatole and androstenone deposition are inconsistent. Thus, positive correlations (P , 0.05) between carcass weight and skatole and/or androstenone levels have been reported by Mortensen et al (1986), Walstra et al (1999) and Sinclair et al (2001). The other authors did not find a significant relationship (P > 0.05) between skatole and androstenone levels and carcass weight (Hennessy et al, 1995).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 82%

“…A reduced rate of hepatic androstenone catabolism via 3b-HSD could be one of the possible explanations for an increase in the level of androstenone in adipose tissue with increasing carcass weight, as reported by , Walstra et al (1999) and Sinclair et al (2001). However, there are also a number of publications that did not find any correlation between backfat androstenone and carcass weight (LeDenmat et al, 1993;Neupert et al, 1995).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Relationship between carcass weight, adipose tissue androstenone level and expression of the hepatic 3β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase in entire commercial pigs

Nicolau-Solano

Whittington

Wood

et al. 2007

Animal

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Boar taint is a major meat-quality defect in pigs and is due to excessive accumulation of skatole and androstenone in adipose tissue. The present work investigated the relationship between carcass weight, levels of skatole and androstenone in adipose tissue, and expression of the hepatic androstenone-metabolising enzyme 3b-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (3b-HSD), in 22 entire male and 22 entire female crossbred pigs (Large White (40%) 3 Landrace (40%) 3 Duroc (20%)). Animals of each gender were divided into two subgroups (11 pigs in each subgroup): (i) conventional weight (carcass weight 59 to 77 kg) and (ii) heavy weight (carcass weight 84 to 95 kg). No relationship between carcass weight and adipose tissue skatole level was found for entire male pigs (r 2 5 0.013, P > 0.05). There was a significant negative relationship between carcass weight and expression of the hepatic 3b-HSD protein (r 2 5 0.502, P , 0.001) and a significant negative relationship between 3b-HSD protein expression and androstenone level in adipose tissue (r 2 5 0.24, P , 0.05) in entire males. No relationship was found between carcass weight and 3b-HSD protein expression in female pigs (r 2 5 0.001, P > 0.05). 3b-HSD expression was 59% higher in conventional-weight male pigs when compared with heavy-weight animals (P , 0.05) and 36% higher in heavy-weight females when compared with heavy-weight males (P , 0.05). It is concluded that an increase in slaughter weight of entire commercial crossbred Large White pigs is accompanied by inhibition of expression of the hepatic 3b-HSD protein, which might result in a reduced rate of hepatic androstenone clearance with its subsequent accumulation in adipose tissue. It is suggested that regulation of pig hepatic 3b-HSD expression is under the control of sex hormones.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 82%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Relationship between carcass weight, adipose tissue androstenone level and expression of the hepatic 3β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase in entire commercial pigs

Nicolau-Solano

Whittington

Wood

et al. 2007

Animal

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“…Androstenone is produced in the testes and its concentration increases with sexual maturity (Bonneau, 1982). Comprehensive studies have shown that between 18 and 42% of the entire males have androstenone levels above 1.0 mg/g adipose tissue (Walstra et al, 1999;Bonneau et al, 2000). The androstenone concentration of 1 mg/g adipose tissue has been proposed to be the threshold value for consumer acceptability in the EU (Desmoulin et al, 1982;Bonneau et al, 1992;Annor-Frempong et al, 1997).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performances, meat quality and boar taint of castrates and entire male pigs fed a standard and a raw potato starch-enriched diet

Pauly

Spring

O’Doherty

et al. 2008

Animal

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In Europe there is increasing concern about the common practice of surgical castration of piglets without anaesthesia. One possible alternative to completely avoid castration is entire male pig production. Thus, the objective of the study was to compare the growth performance, carcass characteristics, organ weights, meat quality traits, fat score and boar taint compounds in the adipose tissue of group-penned entire male pigs and castrates. Furthermore, the effect of raw potato starch (RPS) fed for 7 days prior to slaughter was determined. Pigs (n= 36) were blocked by BW into 12 blocks (3 littermates/block) and assigned to three experimental groups: surgical castrates (C); entire males (EM); and entire males offered RPS (30 g RPS/100 g diet) for 7 days prior to slaughter (EM+). Pigs hadad libitumaccess to the feed from 22 to 107 kg, individual feed intake was recorded daily and BW once a week. Entire males grew slower (EM: 771, EM+: 776v. C: 830 g/day;P< 0.01), consumed less feed (EM: 1.87, EM+: 1.89v. C: 2.23 kg/day;P< 0.01) and were more efficient (feed conversion ratio: EM: 2.42, EM+: 2.44v. C: 2.69 kg/kg;P< 0.01) than C. Compared to C, carcass dressing percentage was lower (EM: 79.4, EM+: 79.4v. C: 81.6%;P< 0.01) and percentage of valuable cuts was higher (EM: 57.3, EM+: 56.5v. 52.6%;P< 0.01) in entire males. The hearts (EM: 426, EM+: 425v. C: 378 g), kidneys (EM: 387, EM+: 378v. C: 311 g), bulbourethral (EM: 200, EM+: 195v. C: 7 g) and salivary glands (EM: 99, EM+: 94v. C: 42 g) were heavier (P< 0.001) in entire males than in C. Meat quality traits did not (P> 0.05) differ among experimental groups but the adipose tissue was more unsaturated in entire males than in C as indicated by the higher fat scores (EM: 69.1, EM+: 67.2v. C: 63.6;P< 0.01). Feeding RPS reduced (P= 0.04) the skatole tissue concentrations (expressed in μg/g lipid) in EM+ (0.22) compared to EM (0.85), whereas androstenone and indole levels were not (P⩾ 0.60) affected (EM: 1.7 and 0.10, EM+: 2.0 and 0.09, respectively). Although the current results confirmed the high efficiency of entire males compared to castrates, the observed high androstenone levels represent a major challenge to implement entire males production.

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Enhanced HPLC Method for Boar Taint Quantification

Pereira‐Pinto,

Barros,

Vaz‐Velho

et al. 2024

ChemistryOpen

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Boar taint is an unpleasant odour found in the carcasses of entire male pigs, resulting from androstenone and skatole accumulation during pubertal development, and impacting pork quality. This study proposes the validation of an adapted chromatographic method for quantifying skatole and androstenone in the pigs’ liquid fat using fluorescence detection. A good chromatographic separation was achieved, with skatole (SKA) and androstenone (AND) elution at 4.4 and 9.9 min., respectively. An external calibration method was applied, with calibration curves correlation coefficient of 0.9999 for both analytes. Detection limit values were 1.53 and 16.02 ng/g for SKA and AND, respectively. SKA recovery was 99.72±2.34 % (2.34 % RSD) and 102.84±1.62 % (1.57 % RSD) for AND. Results showed good precision values (repeatability <2.46 % RSD for SKA, <6.85 % RSD for AND; intermediate precision <2.87 % RSD for SKA, <6.98 % RSD for AND). The method‘s robustness was tested and the values were within the reference ranges. The validation results proved that the adaptation of an existing method resulted in good assessments of robustness, reliability and accuracy.

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An international study on the importance of androstenone and skatole for boar taint: levels of androstenone and skatole by country and season

Cited by 133 publications

References 13 publications

Relationship between carcass weight, adipose tissue androstenone level and expression of the hepatic 3β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase in entire commercial pigs

Relationship between carcass weight, adipose tissue androstenone level and expression of the hepatic 3β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase in entire commercial pigs

Performances, meat quality and boar taint of castrates and entire male pigs fed a standard and a raw potato starch-enriched diet

Enhanced HPLC Method for Boar Taint Quantification

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