Plasma Metabolomic Profiling Reveals Preliminary Biomarkers of Pork Quality Based on pH Value

Linyuan Shen; Jianfeng Ma; Haodi Zhou; Lei Chen; Jie Tang; Kaige Zhang; Ye Zhao; Lili Niu; Shunhua Zhang; Anan Jiang; Jinyong Wang; Zongyi Guo; Xuewei Li; Yiwu Chen; Mailin Gan; Li Zhu

doi:10.3390/foods11244005

Plasma Metabolomic Profiling Reveals Preliminary Biomarkers of Pork Quality Based on pH Value

Foods. 2022 Dec 11;11(24):4005. doi: 10.3390/foods11244005.

Authors

Linyuan Shen^{1

2}, Jianfeng Ma^{1

2}, Haodi Zhou^{1

2}, Lei Chen^{1

2}, Jie Tang^{1

2}, Kaige Zhang^{1

2}, Ye Zhao^{1

2}, Lili Niu^{1

2}, Shunhua Zhang^{1

2}, Anan Jiang^{1

2}, Jinyong Wang³, Zongyi Guo³, Xuewei Li^{1

2}, Yiwu Chen⁴, Mailin Gan^{1

2}, Li Zhu^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Animal Science, College of Animal Science and Technology, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, China.
² Farm Animal Genetic Resource Exploration and Innovation Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, China.
³ Chongqing Academy of Animal Science, Chongqing 402460, China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Zoonosis Research, Ministry of Education, College of Animal Sciences, Jilin University, Changchun 130062, China.

Abstract

This study aimed to identify biomarkers for pork quality evaluation. Firstly, the correlation between indicators of pork quality evaluation was investigated. The pH of pork meat at 45 min post slaughter showed a significant negative correlation with meat color indicators (r: -0.4868--0.3040). Subsequently, porcine plasma samples were further divided into low pH (pH = 6.16 ± 0.22) or high pH (pH = 6.75 ± 0.08) groups. Plasma metabolites in both sample groups were investigated using untargeted metabolomics. In total, 90 metabolites were recognized as differential metabolites using partial least squares discriminant analysis. Pathway enrichment analysis indicated these differential metabolites were enriched in amino acid metabolism and energy metabolism. Correlation analysis revealed that creatinine, L-carnitine, D-sphingosine, citraconic acid, and other metabolites may constitute novel plasma biomarkers with the pH value of pork meat. The current study provides important insights into plasma biomarkers for predicting pork quality based on pH value.

Keywords: meat quality; metabolomics; pH; plasma biomarkers; pork meat.

Abstract

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