EFFECTS OF MATERNAL VITAMIN D3 LEVELS DURING PREGNANCY ON THE QUALITY CHARACTERISTICS OF PORK OF PIG OFFSPRING

Vitamin D-3 is considered an important nutritional regulatory factor of adipogenesis. It can regulate the quality characteristics of the meat of animals by affecting lipid metabolism. Maternal vitamin D3 levels have long-lasting consequences for the meat quality and growth performance. This study has been conducted to investigate the effect that the maternal vitamin D-3 status in sows during pregnancy has on the meat quality attributes, chemical composition, and relaxation times of low field nuclear magnetic resonance (LF-NMR) T2 of the longissimus dorsi muscle in pig offspring. Materials and methods. 27 sows (41st day of pregnancy) were randomly divided into the low (LD), normal (ND), and high (HD) dietary vitamin D3 groups (characterised by, respectively, 200, 800, and 3200 IU of vitamin D-3/kg experimental diet). In each group, there were 3 replicates with 3 sows per replicate. These diets were maintained throughout the sows' pregnancy up until parturition. From parturition to weaning, all lactating sows were fed according to the ND diet, and all piglets only obtained nutrition through breast milk without adding feed during the lactation period. At the age of 150 days, six offspring pigs in each group (2 offspring pigs with similar body weight per replicate, gender balanced) were selected and slaughtered to evaluate the pork quality characteristics. Results and discussion. The results have shown that maternal vitamin D3 supplementation decreased the L*, b* value, shear force, cooking loss, T21 and T22 relaxation times, and increased the a* value, pH, water holding capacity (WHC), crude protein (CP), crude fat (CF), calcium (Ca), and phosphorus (P) content in the longissimus dorsi muscle of the pig offspring. These results demonstrated that a high-dose maternal vitamin D-3 level can improve the meat quality characteristics of pig offspring, and will provide a scientific basis for the early nutritional regulation of the quality of pork from offspring. Conclusion. The findings have indicated that high-dose maternal vitamin D-3 supplementation (3200 IU of vitamin D-3/kg experimental diet) has positive effects on the quality characteristics of the longissimus dorsi muscle and improves the eating quality of meat in pig offspring.