Influence of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) on intramuscular fatty acid composition in rabbit

Abstract

The impact of feeding CLA has been thoroughly investigated in pigs, and Thiel- Cooper et al. (2001), Ostrowska et al. (2003), Lo Fiego et al. (2004), found that CLA modifies lipid fatty acid profile, negatively affecting some nutritional lipid indexes. So far,much less attention has been paid to rabbits. Recently, Corino et al. (2003) have shown that supplementing rabbit diets with CLA has limited effect on the chemical composition of meat and at a high slaughter weight reduces intramuscular fat content. The present research has been carried out to evaluate the effect of dietary CLA supplementation on cis-9, trans-11 and trans-10,cis-12- C18:2 isomers content, and on fatty acid composition of rabbit intramuscular lipids.