Sun-dried Azolla leaf meal at 10% dietary inclusion improved growth, meat quality, and increased skeletal muscle Ribosomal protein S6 kinase β1 abundance in growing rabbit

Rapidly growing human populations and the increased need for high nutritive value meat in terms of low fat, high protein, and low sodium content are the driving reasons for the increase in rabbit meat production. However, dietary protein alternatives to sustain rabbit meat production, without competing with humans for strategic crops are needed. Therefore, the current study was conducted to investigate the effect of Azolla leaf meal (ALM) as a dietary protein source on growth performance, meat quality, and abundance and activation of Ribosomal protein S6 kinase β1 (p70S6K1), a downstream target of mammalian target of rapamycin signalling pathway and, thus, a key player in the regulation of protein synthesis and muscle mass. For this purpose, 60 weaned male V-Line rabbits were blocked for the initial BW and randomly allotted into four dietary treatments, with 15 replicate per treatment (n = 15/group) as follows: (1) CON group was fed on basal diet contains 0% of ALM, (2) AZ10 group fed on diet containing 10% ALM, (3) AZ20 group fed on diet containing 20% ALM, and (4) AZ30 group fed on diet containing 30% ALM. Rabbits were raised individually, and the experimental period was 42 days. At the end of the experiment, rabbits were euthanised and blood and skeletal muscle samples were collected. Body weight and BW gain were the highest in AZ10 group (P = 0.01), while feed intake was the highest in AZ30 (P = 0.01), feed conversion ratio was the lowest in AZ10 and highest in AZ30 (P = 0.01). Dressing % was the highest in AZ10 and lowest in AZ30 groups (P = 0.01). Muscle cross-sectional area was low in both AZ20 and AZ30 groups compared to CON (P = 0.01). The lysine concentration of Longissimus lumborum muscle increased (P = 0.03) while isoleucine tended to decrease in AZ10 vs CON (P = 0.09). The phosphorylation ratio of skeletal muscle p70S6K1 increased in AZ10 and AZ20 groups (P = 0.05). Therefore, ALM could be included in a growing rabbit diet, up to 10%, while higher doses negatively alter production performance, meat quality, and feed efficiency of growing rabbits.