The developmental changes and effect on IMF content of H-FABP and PPARgamma mRNA expression in sheep muscle

Male Kazak sheep and Xinjiang fine wool sheep of different ages were selected to investigate the developmental changes and effect on intramuscular fat (IMF) content of heart fatty acid-binding protein (H-FABP) and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARgamma) mRNA expression in muscle. Longissimus dorsal muscle was sampled to measure IMF content; and total RNA was extracted to determine H-FABP and PPARgamma mRNA expression levels by real-time PCR. The results showed that: (1) The IMF content increased continuously with growing and showed significant differences (P0.05) existed in Xinjiang fine wool sheep. Furthermore, the IMF content in Kazak sheep was very much higher (P