Diet composition and feeding duration are based on available resources and production goals, yet they exert a profound influence on animal growth rate and production efficiency. Feeding systems, such as grain-based diets support faster muscle growth through the presence of glycolytic intermediates, whereas forage-based diets promote slower growth rate with an increase of oxidative metabolites. These differences suggest that skeletal muscle metabolism is highly responsive to nutrient availability and may play a central role in regulating growth efficiency. Our goal is to understand the molecular mechanisms controlling muscle energy metabolism, particularly mitochondrial function, in response to diet. In the current study, we offer cattle grain- or forage-based maintenance diets and demonstrate altered muscle metabolism, particularly in mitochondria abundance and function, without the confounding factor of growth rate. To highlight the metabolic plasticity of muscles’ response to nutrient supply, gene expression data indicate several metabolic pathways that may contribute to diet induced shifts in muscle metabolism. Together, these data suggest diet composition can influence skeletal muscle energy metabolism and may represent an important mechanism linking nutrition to growth performance and production efficiency in beef cattle.

Read the full article in the Journal of Animal Science.