2. One-d-old female broiler chicks (Ross, n = 192) were used in a completely randomised design with 4 dietary treatments in which diets included 100% (CTL), 153% (LArg), 168% (MArg) and 183% (HArg) of the recommended concentration of digestible Arg.
3. Results showed that high concentrations of Arg improved body weight gain, feed efficiency, meat production, fat and crude protein content of breast muscle and plasma thyroid hormones. Conversely, abdominal fat, cholesterol, triglyceride and urea were lower with higher concentrations of Arg. Dietary arginine increased lipogenic gene expression in muscles, while decreasing those in adipose tissue and liver.
4. It was conclded that increasing Arg in the diet reduced abdominal fat content, enhanced intramuscular fat and increased muscle and protein gain. Furthermore, Arg supplementation at the MArg concentration improved growth performance, and at HArg had the greatest effect on fat reduction. 相似文献