Increasing Marbling Gene Expression in Beef Cattle with Dietary Lipids

Currently, feedlot producers tend to overfeed pens of cattle to ensure adequate marbling, which results in poorer feed efficiencies and higher cost of gains. However, time on feed and corn-based diets work in concert to increase the oleic acid (18:1n-9) in marbling (intramuscular, i.m.) and subcutaneous (s.c.) adipose tissues (Chung et al., 2006; Smith et al., 2009). Corn-based diets stimulate stearoyl-Coa desaturase (SCD) gene expression (Chung et al., 2007) and the resultant oleic acid improves beef palatability (Waldman et al., 1968; Westerling and Hedrick, 1979) and increases its healthfulness of beef (Adams et al., 2010; Gilmore et al., 2011).