Transcriptomic profiling as a screening tool to detect trenbolone treatment in beef cattle

Area of Science:

• * Bovine genomics and transcriptomics.
• * Molecular mechanisms of growth promotion in livestock.

Background:

• * Steroid hormone implants are used as growth promoters (GPs) in beef cattle production.
• * Understanding their effects on muscle gene expression is crucial for regulatory and quality control purposes.

Purpose of the Study:

• * To investigate the impact of different steroid hormone implant combinations on the bovine muscle transcriptome.
• * To identify predictive gene markers for classifying GP-treated cattle.

Main Methods:

• * DNA-microarray analysis of bovine muscle tissue from cattle treated with trenbolone, 17β-estradiol (17β-E), or a combination with dexamethasone.
• * Application of Prediction Analysis of Microarray ( a meta-analysis approach for the Revalor group.
• * Classification analysis using identified gene markers.

Main Results:

• * Significant modulation of large gene sets and shared biological pathways across different GP treatments.
• * Accurate identification of GP-treated animals using a small number of predictive genes.
• * High classification accuracy (90%) achieved using 105 predictive gene markers for the Revalor group.

Conclusions:

• * Transcriptomic profiling effectively reveals the molecular effects of anabolic treatments in cattle.
• * Identified gene markers show potential for developing indirect biomarkers to detect anabolic use in beef.
• * This approach can aid in screening muscle samples for anabolic treatment verification post-slaughter.