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Double-muscled Cattle
Double-muscled cattle are breeds of cattle that carry one of seven known mutations that limits and reduces the activity of the myostatin protein. Normally, myostatin limits the number of muscle fibers present at birth, and interfering with activity of this protein causes animals to be born with higher numbers of muscle fibers, consequently augmenting muscle growth. Additionally, these mutations reduce the superficial and internal fat deposits, causing the meat to be less marbled and lower in fat content. Animals homozygous for myostatin mutation (inheriting a mutant copy of myostatin from both sire and dam) also have improved meat tenderness in some cuts of meat. The enlarged muscles of dam and calf at birth leads to increased difficulty of calving, and in some breeds frequently necessitates birth by cesarean section. Double-muscling historically has also been known as myofibre hyperplasia, doppellender, muscular hypertrophy, a groppa doppia, and culard. History Some breeds o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mutation
In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA or viral replication, mitosis, or meiosis or other types of damage to DNA (such as pyrimidine dimers caused by exposure to ultraviolet radiation), which then may undergo error-prone repair (especially microhomology-mediated end joining), cause an error during other forms of repair, or cause an error during replication ( translesion synthesis). Mutations may also result from insertion or deletion of segments of DNA due to mobile genetic elements. Mutations may or may not produce detectable changes in the observable characteristics ( phenotype) of an organism. Mutations play a part in both normal and abnormal biological processes including: evolution, cancer, and the development of the immune system, including junctional diversity. Mutation is the ultima ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meat Industry
The meat industry are the people and companies engaged in modern industrialized livestock agriculture for the production, packing, preservation and marketing of meat (in contrast to dairy products, wool, etc.). In economics, the meat industry is a fusion of primary (agriculture) and secondary (industry) activity and hard to characterize strictly in terms of either one alone. The greater part of the meat industry is the meat packing industry – the segment that handles the slaughtering, processing, packaging, and distribution of animals such as poultry, cattle, pigs, sheep and other livestock. A great portion of the ever-growing meat branch in the food industry involves intensive animal farming in which livestock are kept almost entirely indoors or in restricted outdoor settings like pens. Many aspects of the raising of animals for meat have become industrialized, even many practices more associated with smaller family farms, e.g. gourmet foods such as foie gras. The product ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Myostatin
Myostatin (also known as growth differentiation factor 8, abbreviated GDF8) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''MSTN'' gene. Myostatin is a myokine that is produced and released by myocytes and acts on muscle cells to inhibit muscle growth. Myostatin is a secreted growth differentiation factor that is a member of the TGF beta protein family. Myostatin is assembled and produced in skeletal muscle before it is released into the blood stream. Most of the data regarding the effects of myostatin comes from studies performed on mice. Animals either lacking myostatin or treated with substances that block the activity of myostatin have significantly more muscle mass. Furthermore, individuals who have mutations in both copies of the myostatin gene have significantly more muscle mass and are stronger than normal. There is hope that studies into myostatin may have therapeutic application in treating muscle wasting diseases such as muscular dystrophy. Discovery and sequencin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charolais Cattle
The Charolais () or Charolaise () is a French breed of taurine beef cattle. It originates in, and is named for, the Charolais area surrounding Charolles, in the Saône-et-Loire department, in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of eastern France. Charolais are raised for meat; they may be crossed with other breeds, including Angus and Hereford cattle. History The Charolais is the second-most numerous cattle breed in France after the Holstein and is the most common beef breed in that country, ahead of the Limousin. At the end of 2014, France had 4.22 million head of Charolais, including 1.56 million cows, down 0.6% from a year earlier. The Charolais is a world breed: it is reported to DAD-IS by 68 countries, of which 37 report population data. The world population is estimated at about 730,000. The largest populations are reported from the Czech Republic and Mexico. The breed was introduced to the southern United States from Mexico in 1934. As the cradle of the Ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Limousin Cattle
The Limousin, french: italic=no, Limousine, is a French breed of beef cattle from the Limousin and Marche regions of France. It was formerly used mainly as a draught animal, but in modern times is reared for beef. A herd-book was established in France in 1886. With the mechanisation of agriculture in the twentieth century, numbers declined. In the 1960s there were still more than 250 000 head, but the future of the breed was not clear; it was proposed that it be merged with the other blonde draught breeds of south-western France – the Blonde des Pyrénées, the Blonde de Quercy and the Garonnaise – to form the new Blonde d'Aquitaine. Instead, a breeders' association was formed; new importance was given to extensive management, to performance recording and to exports. In the twenty-first century the Limousin is the second-most numerous beef breed in France after the Charolais. It is a world breed, raised in about eighty countries round the world, many of which have breed as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maine-Anjou
The Maine-Anjou is a French breed of domestic cattle, raised mainly in the Pays de la Loire region in north-western France. It was created in the nineteenth century in the historic province of Maine by cross-breeding the local Mancelle dairy cattle with Durham stock from Britain, and was at first called the Durham-Mancelle. In France it has been known since 2004 as the , but the Maine-Anjou name continues to be used elsewhere. It was formerly a dual-purpose animal, raised both for meat and for milk, but is now principally a beef breed. History The Maine-Anjou breed was created in the nineteenth century by owners of large estates in the traditional province of Maine, who cross-bred the local Mancelle dairy cattle with British Durham cattle – the breed that would later become the Shorthorn. The resulting dual-purpose breed was thus originally known as the Durham-Mancelle. A herd-book was started in 1908, and the name of the breed was changed to Maine-Anjou. It was changed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parthenais
The Parthenaise is a French cattle breed. It is named for the town of Parthenay in the département of Deux-Sèvres, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of western France. It was formerly a triple-purpose breed, raised for milk, meat and draught animal, draught work, but is now raised mainly for beef. History The Parthenaise forms a part of the large population – sometimes called Poitevine or Vendéenne – of wheaten-coloured cattle which traditionally occupied the western part of France, from the Loire to the Gironde. It is closely related to the Maraîchine, the Nantaise and the extinct Marchoise and Berrichonne, all of which belong to the same group. Oxen of this type were used mainly for agricultural draught animal, draught work in , in the Saintonge (region), Saintonge, in Touraine and in the Vendée. The cattle were sometimes called Gâtinaises or ''Boeufs de Gâtine'', so named for the Gâtine Vendéenne. At the end of their working lives, these oxen were often sen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piedmontese (cattle)
thumbnail, A Piedmontese bull The Piedmontese ( it, Piemontese, italic=no or ) is a breed of domestic cattle that originated in the region of Piedmont, in north-west Italy. The calves are born fawn coloured, and turn grey-white as they mature. Piedmontese cattle carry a unique gene mutation identified as an inactive myostatin allele that causes hypertrophic muscle growth, or double muscling. Purebred Piedmontese cattle are homozygous, meaning they have two identical alleles present for this unique gene. They have garnered attention from breeders of beef cattle in other parts of the world, including North and South America. A small group of select Piedmontese bulls and cows were imported into Canada in the late 1970s, and into the United States in the early 1980s, and were used as the foundation breeding stock to develop a new breed of beef cattle known as North American Piedmontese cattle. History Until the late nineteenth century there were numerous local types of Pi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belgian Blue
The Belgian Blue (french: 'Blanc-Bleu Belge', nl, 'Belgisch Witblauw', both literally meaning "Belgian White-Blue") is a breed of beef cattle from Belgium. It may also be known as the , or nl, dikbil, label=none (literally "fat buttocks" in Dutch). Alternative names for this breed include Belgian Blue-White; Belgian White and Blue Pied; Belgian White Blue; Blue; and Blue Belgian. The Belgian Blue's extremely lean, hyper-sculpted, ultra-muscular physique is termed "double-muscling". The double-muscling phenotype is a heritable condition resulting in an increased number of muscle fibres (hyperplasia), instead of the (normal) enlargement of ''individual'' muscle fibres (hypertrophy). This particular trait is shared with another breed of cattle known as Piedmontese. Both of these breeds have an increased ability to convert feed into lean muscle, which causes these particular breeds' meat to have a reduced fat content and reduced tenderness. The Belgian Blue is named after it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Myostatin
Myostatin (also known as growth differentiation factor 8, abbreviated GDF8) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''MSTN'' gene. Myostatin is a myokine that is produced and released by myocytes and acts on muscle cells to inhibit muscle growth. Myostatin is a secreted growth differentiation factor that is a member of the TGF beta protein family. Myostatin is assembled and produced in skeletal muscle before it is released into the blood stream. Most of the data regarding the effects of myostatin comes from studies performed on mice. Animals either lacking myostatin or treated with substances that block the activity of myostatin have significantly more muscle mass. Furthermore, individuals who have mutations in both copies of the myostatin gene have significantly more muscle mass and are stronger than normal. There is hope that studies into myostatin may have therapeutic application in treating muscle wasting diseases such as muscular dystrophy. Discovery and sequencin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parthenaise
The Parthenaise is a French cattle breed. It is named for the town of Parthenay in the département of Deux-Sèvres, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of western France. It was formerly a triple-purpose breed, raised for milk, meat and draught work, but is now raised mainly for beef. History The Parthenaise forms a part of the large population – sometimes called Poitevine or Vendéenne – of wheaten-coloured cattle which traditionally occupied the western part of France, from the Loire to the Gironde. It is closely related to the Maraîchine, the Nantaise and the extinct Marchoise and Berrichonne, all of which belong to the same group. Oxen of this type were used mainly for agricultural draught work in , in the Saintonge, in Touraine and in the Vendée. The cattle were sometimes called Gâtinaises or ''Boeufs de Gâtine'', so named for the Gâtine Vendéenne. At the end of their working lives, these oxen were often sent to the area of Cholet to be fattened for slaughte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piedmontese Cattle
thumbnail, A Piedmontese bull The Piedmontese ( it, Piemontese, italic=no or ) is a breed of domestic cattle that originated in the region of Piedmont, in north-west Italy. The calves are born fawn coloured, and turn grey-white as they mature. Piedmontese cattle carry a unique gene mutation identified as an inactive myostatin allele that causes hypertrophic muscle growth, or double muscling. Purebred Piedmontese cattle are homozygous, meaning they have two identical alleles present for this unique gene. They have garnered attention from breeders of beef cattle in other parts of the world, including North and South America. A small group of select Piedmontese bulls and cows were imported into Canada in the late 1970s, and into the United States in the early 1980s, and were used as the foundation breeding stock to develop a new breed of beef cattle known as North American Piedmontese cattle. History Until the late nineteenth century there were numerous local types of Pie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
