Browsing by Author "Dong, Xinyue"

Due to the significant increase in broiler growth rate and meat yield in poultry farming, a particularly urgent problem of muscle defects named Wooden Breast (WB) has appeared in chicken breasts. WB is pale in overall color due to muscle degeneration and exhibits varying degrees of hard touch. The appearance of chicken breasts with more severe WB may have blood oozing. Citrate synthase is a rate-limiting enzyme involved in the tricarboxylic acid cycle-oxidative phosphorylation. It catalyzes the formation of the product citric acid for the subsequent tricarboxylic acid cycle or is transported to the cytoplasm for protein and fatty acid metabolism. Its activity can regulate the organism's material and energy metabolism, and the activity of citrate synthase can be affected by nerve stimulation, hormone secretion, and exercise. This study is part of the Wing Flapping Project. This project aims to study the possible effect of exercise on WB to improve this syndrome. The 154 broiler chicken was randomly divided into three groups. ( A: control group with no exercise; B: exercise from 25d on and C: exercise from 3 d on). The water and feed would be set on different elevations to motivate the birds to do the wing flapping. There would be three slaughter date: d20, d30, d41. The samples would be taken from the middle area of the chicken breasts. The aim of this study is to analyze the activity of citrate synthase in mitochondria in chicken breast to study whether the difference in exercise conditions is the cause of WB formation in broilers and the effect of growth time on it. The results showed that wing- flapping exercise has no significant influence in wooden breast myopathy. The citrate synthase activity in severe wooden breast is significantly lower than the normal breast (p<0.05) and it decreased with the increasing severe degree of wooden breast.