Recently, the Meat Science and Nutrition Innovation Team from Institute of Food Science and Technology of CAAS integrated metabolome, proteome, and transcriptome analysis explored the molecule mechanism of phosphoglycerate kinase 1 (PGK1) and pyruvate kinase M2 (PKM2) characterizing the postmortem meat quality. This work was published in the top journal " Food Frontiers " (JCR Q1, IF=9.9).

Meat quality has significant implications not only for consumers' purchasing decisions and the economic performance of the industry, but also for food waste and environmental pollution resulting from the deterioration of postmortem meat quality. However, a serious of biochemical, physical and metabolic changes occur during the process of the muscle conversion into meat, which directly influence the development of postmortem meat quality. Among them, glycolysis, is an important energy metabolic process in postmortem muscle, directly influences and decide the development of meat quality. The glycolytic enzymes of PGK1 and PKM2 as the only 2 ATP-generating enzymes in glycolysis, which can affect the post-mortem glycolytic rate. Our previous studies found that PGK1 and PKM2 could be identified as protein biomarkers to characterize meat quality (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.meatsci.2023.109126, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2023.136739). However, the precise molecular mechanisms by which PGK1 and PKM2 characterize the formation of postmortem meat quality remain unclear.

This study investigated the molecular mechanisms insight on the characterization and regulation of postmortem meat quality by PGK1 and PKM2. The results indicated that glycolysis played a crucial role in regulating PGK1 and PKM2 activity at the metabolome, proteome, and transcriptome levels. In glycolysis pathway, we identified several key components closely related to PGK1 and PKM2 activity, including differential metabolites (ATP (adenosine triphosphate), ADP (adenosine diphosphate), glucose-6-phosphate, NADP (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate), fructose-6-phosphate, dihydroxyacetone phosphate, 3-phosphoglycerate, NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide), lactate, and pyruvate), different abundance proteins (LDHB (lactate dehydrogenase B) and ALDOB (fructose bisphosphate aldolase B)), and differentially expressed genes (HK (hexokinase) and FBP1 (fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase 1)). It was concluded that PGK1 and PKM2 may affect the formation of meat quality by regulating these critical substrates. This integrative omics study offers valuable insight into unraveling the molecular mechanisms underlying postmortem meat quality development.

Professor Dequan Zhang and Li Chen are the corresponding author and the GSCAAS-LGg program PhD student Caiyan Huang is the first author. This study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32072144), and the Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Program, Institute of Food Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS-ASTIP-2023-IFST).

https://doi.org/10.1002/fft2.404