Acetyl CoA Carboxylase 1 (ACC1) is a
biotin-dependent
enzyme that catalyzes the carboxylation of
Acetyl CoA to form
Malonyl CoA, the key intermediate metabolite in
fatty acid synthesis. In this study, the
mRNA expression of the ACC1 gene was evaluated in four different tissues (liver, visceral fat, subcutaneous fat, and longissimus muscle) of the domestic goat (Capra hircus) kids feeding on four different levels of trivalent
chromium (0, 0.5, 1, and 1.5mg/day) as food supplementation. RT-qPCR technique was used for expression analyses and
heat shock protein 90 gene (HSP-90) was considered as reference gene for data normalization. Our results revealed that 1.5mg/day
chromium significantly reduced the expression of the ACC1 gene in liver, visceral fat, and subcutaneous fat tissues, but not in longissimus muscles (P<0.05). We measured some phenotypic traits of kid's carcasses to detect their probable correlations with
chromium-mediated downregulation of ACC1 expression. Interestingly, changes in ACC1 expression were accompanied with decreased accumulation of
fats in adipose tissues such that the subcutaneous fat thickness and heart fat percentage decreased in kids feeding on
chromium. By contrast,
chromium supplemented kids showed higher percentage of muscles despite the fact that their total
body weight did not differ from that of non-supplemented kids. Our study suggests that trivalent
chromium alters the direction of energy accumulation towards muscles rather than
fats and provides insights into application of
chromium supplementation as a useful strategy for improvement of meat quality in domestic animals.