Recently, the Meat Science and Nutrition Research Team, Institute of Food Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, reported the phosphorylation and acetylation of hexokinase, phosphofructokinase and pyruvate kinase coregulate glycolysis and meat quality through regulation on their activity. The relevant research results were published in the top journal of Food Chemistry (IF: 9.203, Q1) with the title “Phosphorylation and acetylation of glycolytic enzymes cooperatively regulate their activity and lamb meat quality”.

Excessive or insufficient glycolysis causes meat quality deterioration resulting in economic losses for the meat industry. Hexokinase, phosphofructokinase and pyruvate kinase are the three rate-limiting enzymes of glycolysis, which determine glycolysis in meat. The previous studies of this team demonstrated that both protein phosphorylation and acetylation affected the activity of glycolytic enzymes. However, the coregulation of phosphorylation and acetylation on activities of glycolytic enzymes in meat is still unknown. The objectives of the present study were to investigate the coregulation pattern of phosphorylation and acetylation on hexokinase, phosphofructokinase and pyruvate kinase in muscle samples with different glycolysis rates, and the consequent influence on meat quality. The results showed that the acetylation and phosphorylation of hexokinase were connected with lactate content and positively related with its activity. The acetylation and phosphorylation of phosphofructokinase were linked to shear force and negatively associated with its activity. The acetylation and phosphorylation of pyruvate kinase showed insignificant correlations with its activity, but might participated in the regulation meat color and cooking loss. This study revealed that the phosphorylation and acetylation of three glycolytic rate-limiting enzymes coregulated glycolysis through different crosstalk patterns on their activity and might affect meat quality, which provided a theoretical foundation for developing precision preservation technology of fresh meat.

Professor Dequan Zhang and Associate Professor Xin Li are the co-corresponding authors, and PhD student Chi Ren is the first authors. This study was financially supported by the Key Program from National Natural Science Foundation of China (32030086) and Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Program, Institute of Food Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS-ASTIP-2022-IFST) in China.

The phosphorylation and acetylation of three glycolytic rate-limiting enzymes coregulated glycolysis through different crosstalk patterns on their activity

Link to the paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2022.133739