Expression of DNAJA1 in bovine muscles according to developmental age and management factors

Abstract

We have recently shown that the expression of the DNAJA1 gene encoding a heat shock protein (Hsp40) is a negative marker of meat tenderness in Charolais bulls. To acquire knowledge on the regulation of DNAJA1 expression, we analysed the abundance of DNAJA1 transcripts and protein during development and according to management factors (e.g. feeding treatments, growth path and stress status) in different bovine muscles during postnatal life. We report here a developmental expression profile for DNAJA1 with decreased levels of transcript and protein during the progression of myogenesis. During postnatal life, we found the highest expression of DNAJA1 in the most oxidative muscles. No effect was detected for dietary treatment (pasture v. maize-based diet), growth path (compensatory growth after a restriction period) or pre-slaughter stress status. Therefore, the genetic background and muscle type could be considered as the main factors regarding the level of DNAJA1. Integration of the knowledge gained from this study should help to predict muscle metabolic properties and the ability of the live animals to give high sensory quality meat.Keywords: Hsp40, myogenesis, nutrition, growth path, stress ImplicationsBeef is characterized by a high and uncontrolled variability of its sensory attributes, especially tenderness, which is one reason for consumer dissatisfaction. There is still no simple, reliable and reproducible technique to predict quality, which is a limitation to the delivery of a consistent quality meat. Thus, identification of markers of quality attributes is of major socio-economic importance. Recently, we reported that expression of DNAJA1 was a negative tenderness marker. This study examines DNAJA1 expression in bovine muscles having different metabolic specificities during development and according to management factors. It should help to increase knowledge of DNAJA1 expression, and to screen for live animals with favourable muscle properties and potentially high-quality meat.

Early post mortem expression of genes related to tenderization in two Italian Simmental young bulls' skeletal muscles differing in contractile type

“…Moreover, Cassar‐Malek et al . () found higher expression of Hsp40 in the higher oxidative muscles at the protein level, but not always at the transcript level, probably because of translational mechanisms and/or mRNA stability.…”

“…; Cassar‐Malek et al . ; Guillemin et al . ) prompted the authors to suggest that Hsps may have a role in tenderness, although the muscle tenderness degree had not been experimentally evaluated in these studies (Cassar‐Malek et al .…”

“…Many authors have reported that slowtwitch muscles are less prone to tenderization in comparison to fast-twitch ones, mainly ascribing this difference at the calpain/calpastatin system activity (Ouali & Talmant 1990;Monin & Ouali 1991;Muroya et al 2012). In addition, the recent observation that Hsp27, Hsp40 and Hsp70 are more abundantly expressed in oxidative than glycolytic muscles (O'Neill et al 2006;Cassar-Malek et al 2011;Guillemin et al 2011) prompted the authors to suggest that Hsps may have a role in tenderness, although the muscle tenderness degree had not been experimentally evaluated in these studies Guillemin et al 2011).…”

The GENOTEND chip: a new tool to analyse gene expression in muscles of beef cattle for beef quality prediction

“…The steers were reared in the experimental farm “Le Pin au Haras” and slaughtered at 30 months on average. All animals were slaughtered in the same conditions and without any electrical stimulation at the INRA experimental slaughterhouse in compliance with current INRA ethical guidelines for animal welfare [22]. Muscle samples from the Longissimus thoracis were excised within 15 minutes after slaughter.…”

A Network-Based Approach for Predicting Hsp27 Knock-Out Targets in Mouse Skeletal Muscles

“…They have identified some potential biological markers of beef tenderness in different production systems. These biomarkers are involved in a lot of different cellular pathways such as muscle contraction, stress reactions, glycolysis and apoptosis [8]. In order to further understand the functional relationships between these markers that may participate in controlling tenderness, we computed a bioinformatic analysis [9].…”