“QualiPiem” - Innovative tools for selection of meat quality in Piemontese breed

Genetic improvement of meat quality is complicated by the large number of traits involved and is usually limited by difficulties and costs related to sample collection and analytical procedures, which involve time-consuming lab methods. The “QualiPiem” project is aimed at exploring the possibility of selecting meat quality traits in Piemontese cattle, with a particular concern to application and to cognitive aspects. The study provides the development of innovative tools for phenotypes detection on large scale at operational level based on visual and near-infrared spectroscopy (Vis-NIRS), the understanding of the genetic basis of meat quality traits and the implementation of genomic tools for selection. Samples collection started on April 2015 and was carried on until February 2017. Twenty-four hours after slaughter, individual samples of the longissimus thoracis muscle were collected between the fifth and sixth thoracic vertebrae from 1,234 Piemontese young bulls, which were progeny of 193 A.I. purebred sires and 1,212 dams, all registered in the Italian Piemontese Herd Book. Animals were fattened on 135 farms and slaughtered at the same commercial abattoir. The SEUROP conformation of carcasses was also recorded at slaughter. Vis-NIRS spectra were collected on all fresh samples over a spectral range of 350 to 1,830 nm, in reflectance mode. After 8 d of aging physical attributes of meat samples were assessed by measurement of lightness (L*), redness (a*), yellowness (b*), pH (pH8d), drip loss (DL, %), cooking loss (CL, %) and shear force (SF, kg). Data on farms management were recorded to investigate environmental effects on quality traits. Average age at slaughter (± Standard Deviation) was 542 d (± 62 d), average carcass weight was 437 kg (± 46 kg) leading to 0.820 g (± 0.11 g) of average carcass daily gain. “S”, “E”, “U” carcass conformation classes accounted for 26%, 67% and 7% of animals respectively. Average values (± s.d.) of physical parameters were 40.03 (± 5.98), 18.22 (± 3.09), 15.65 (± 2.75) for L*, a*, b* respectively and 5.56 (± 0.06), 4.60 (± 1.33), 16.53 (± 3.43) and 4.25 (± 1.15) for pH8d, DL %, CL % and SF kg respectively. Five main management systems were identified by cluster analysis. Next steps will concern the development of calibration equations for traits prediction from Vis-NIRS spectral data, the investigation of phenotypic and genetic variability and the implementation of genomic analysis for the selection of beef quality traits.