AVALIAÇÃO MORFOMÉTRICA DE CÉLULAS MUSCULARES DE BEZERROS DA RAÇA NELORE SUBMETIDOS À PROGRAMAÇÃO FETAL

Fetal programming (FP) is defined as a maternal dietary stimulus during pregnancy that presents effects on the fetus and future offspring. This process affects beef productivity in Brazil, where the predominant productive system is pasture. The objective of this study was to evaluate the area of cells from Longissimus lumborum muscle of Nellore calves at 30 days of age submitted to FP. Forty-two calves were used in which their progenitors were initially divided into three nutritional levels during pregnancy. The evaluation of the muscle cells area was done by Image Pro Plus program and the data were analyzed by general linear models by SAS 9.3. No statistical difference was found between the treatments, showing that at 30 days of age there is no variation between muscle fibers areas in Nellore calves. Thus, hypertrophy should be better observed according to animals growing and development, accentuating differences between treatments.