Metabolomic Approach to Understand the Effect of Lairage on the Quality of Pork Loin

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of lairage on the metabolomic profiles and physicochemical quality of pork loin. The castrated commercial Landrace × Yorkshire × Duroc (LYD) pigs were assigned into 2 groups: slaughter without lairage (CON; n = 20) and slaughter after 24 h lairage (LRG; n = 20). The metabolomic profiles and physicochemical properties (pH, moisture content, water holding capacity, cooking loss, meat color, and tenderness) of pork loin from CON and LRG were evaluated. The effect of lairage was not found in the physicochemical quality of pork loin (P > 0.05). However, when considering their metabolites, CON and LRG were distinguished in orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis majorly due to the 2 up-regulated (isoleucine and valine) and 5 down-regulated (glutamate, glycerol, glycine, lysine, and methionine) compounds in LRG (P < 0.05). Pathways such as amino acid metabolisms, glyc-erolipid metabolism, and glutathione metabolism were differentiated between CON and LRG. Despite the absence of observed quality changes, our findings contribute to the understanding of how lairage impacts muscle metabolism following slaughter.