Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** FAT is responsible forbeef…

Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** FAT is responsible forbeef tendernessand flavor. Without FAT, beef is dry and has little flavor.as a result, the accumulation of FAT in the muscle (A.K.A. Marbling; intramuscular adipose tissue- imat) is the primary determination of beef quality grade. One challenge that beef industry faces is how to improve marbling without leading to excessive FAT accumulation in other parts of the animal body, such as around viscera (visceral adipose tissue - viat) and beneath the skin throughout the body (subcutaneous adipose tissue-scat). Fatness leads to economic losses to producers as beef value decreases and large amount of undesirable waste FAT is produced. Our hypothesis is that different cell types and other components of the FAT tissue, like the connective tissue (ECM), affect the way imat, viat and scat grow in beef steers, and that a better understanding of these cellular mechanisms can help to develop new strategies (i.e. nutrition, genetics) to enhance marbling while limiting the production of waste FAT. In our project, we will use beef steers with different marbling and fatness degrees to:aim 1: define the genetics of cell types present in imat, scat, and viat.aim 2: outline the function of FAT cell progenitors in imat, scat, and viat.aim 3: determine how the connective tissue-ECM of imat, scat, and viat affects the function of FAT cells. We expect to identify cell types that are different in quantity and function between the different FAT tissues and animals with distinct marbling scores, and to find that characteristics of connective tissue affects FAT accumulation. We expect to identify several FAT cell progenitors that differ in amount and function between steers with high and low marbling. Our project will generate novel knowledge for the discovery of cellular targets which can be used for developing interventions to increase marbling and limit fatness in beef steers, and subsequently improve beef quality and industry profitability.