Low-protein diet improves meat quality of growing and finishing pigs through changing lipid metabolism, fiber characteristics, and free amino acid profile of the muscle.

The objective of the study was to investigate the effect of feeding reduced CP, AA-supplemented diets on meat quality in growing and finishing pigs as well as the related mechanism. In experiment 1, 18 growing pigs (36.5 kg BW) were assigned randomly and fed 1 of 3 corn-soybean meal diets containing either 18% CP (normal protein, NP), 15% CP (low protein, LP), or 12% CP (very low protein, VLP). In experiment 2, 18 finishing pigs (62.3 kg BW) were allotted randomly into 1 of the following diets: 16% CP (NP), 13% CP (LP), or 10% CP (VLP). In both experiments, the LP and VLP diets were supplemented with crystalline AA to achieve equal content of standardized ileal digestible lysine, methionine, threonine, and tryptophan. At the end of each experiment, all pigs were slaughtered to collect longissimus dorsi muscle (LM) samples. Samples were used for determining meat quality, intramuscular fat (IMF) content, fatty acid composition, free AA profile, and expression of genes for myosin heavy chain isoforms. Results showed that growing and finishing pigs fed the LP diets increased (P < 0.05) redness value of LM, while finishing pigs fed the LP and VLP diets decreased (P < 0.05) the shear force values. Compared with the NP diet, growing and finishing pigs fed lower CP diets had higher (P < 0.05) contents of IMF and MUFA, and lower (P < 0.05) contents of PUFA. Besides, higher (P < 0.05) expression levels of type I and/or IIa muscle fibers were observed in LP diet-fed growing and finishing pigs, and greater concentrations of taurine and tasty AA in VLP diet-fed growing and finishing pigs. Taken together, our results indicate that low-protein diets could positively affect meat quality of growing and finishing pigs, and likely through regulation of IMF content and fatty acid composition, fiber characteristics, and free AA profile in the muscle.