ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Animal Nutrition and Metabolism
This article is part of the Research TopicInnovative Solutions in Animal Nutrition to Enhance the Sustainability of the Zootechnical Production SystemView all 5 articles
Effects of Lactobacillus supplementation on growth and meat quality of Simmental bulls
Provisionally accepted
- Lyuliang University, Lvliang, China
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Probiotics are well established to enhance animal immunity and gastrointestinal health, while also improving meat tenderness and antioxidant status. This study evaluated the effects of dietary Lactobacillus supplementation on growth and meat quality of Simmental bulls. Forty Simmental bulls were randomly assigned by body weight to one of four groups, receiving a basal diet supplemented with Lactobacillus at 0, 0.1, 0.2, or 0.3 g per kg of dry matter (DM). The trial included a 20-day adaptation phase followed by a 60-day experimental period. Dietary Lactobacillus supplementation did not affect DM intake or carcass traits (P > 0.05) but linearly increased average daily gain (P = 0.001) and reduced the feed conversion ratio (P = 0.001). Increasing the Lactobacillus dose linearly enhanced meat redness (P = 0.007), while decreasing cooking loss (P = 0.022) and shear force (P = 0.014). Intramuscular fat content and triglyceride levels increased significantly (P = 0.017 and 0.001, respectively), showing linear and quadratic patterns. Antioxidant indices were also strengthened with increasing dosage, including total antioxidant capacity (P = 0.005) and glutathione peroxidase activity (P = 0.012) in a linear manner, and catalase activity (P = 0.012) in a quadratic manner. The Lactobacillus supplementation linearly reduced the proportions of C16:0 (P = 0.008) and saturated fatty acids (SFA) (P = 0.001), and increased the proportions of C18:1n9c (P = 0.013), C22:5n3 (P = 0.017), monounsaturated fatty acids (P = 0.009), polyunsaturated fatty acids (P = 0.007), unsaturated fatty acids (UFA) (P = 0.001), and the UFA/SFA ratio (P = 0.001). The Lactobacillus linearly upregulated the mRNA expression of fatty acid synthase, acetyl-CoA carboxylase, and sterol regulatory element binding transcription factor 1 (P = 0.002, 0.001, and 0.010), quadratically upregulated stearoyl-CoA desaturase 1 and peroxisome proliferate-activated receptor α (P = 0.001 and 0.003), and linearly downregulated carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1B (P = 0.009). Collectively, our results establish that 0.2 g/kg DM is the optimal dosage of dietary Lactobacillus supplementation for simultaneously enhancing bull growth and beef quality. This work validates probiotics as a sustainable feeding strategy and opens new avenues for improving meat quality through microbial manipulation.
Keywords: Lactobacillus, Growth, meat quality, Intramuscular fat, Bulls
Received: 22 Aug 2025; Accepted: 14 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Wang, WANG, He, Zhang and Feng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Cai ping Feng, 876936514@qq.com
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