Metabolismo Post-Mortem e Anomalie Muscolari delle Carni Avicole

Modern hybrids designed for meat production are more susceptible to the development of metabolic disorders and growth-related muscular abnormalities affecting P. major muscle (i.e. white striping, wooden breast and spaghetti meat), that currently deeply affect meat quality and whose incidence in recent years has reached worrying levels. Considering this scenario, this PhD project aimed at deepening the existing knowledge on the effects of muscular aberrations on poultry meat quality and carrying out a characterization of post-mortem muscle metabolism of fast-growing birds, in order to investigate the factors contributing to the intra and inter-specie variations in energy-generating metabolism and other biochemical processes. The first part of the present research permitted to establish the relationship between histidine-containing compounds and muscle post-mortem metabolism, highlighting that the greater concentration of anserine and carnosine of breast meat might provide resistance to the post-mortem pH decline, thus justifying the intra- and inter-specie differences existing between the pHu values. Moreover, the results obtained in the second part concerning muscular abnormalities allowed to assess the peculiar effect of each growth-related abnormality on meat quality and provide information that might be valuable in managing abnormal meat for further processing, as well as offer new insights about the biochemistry controlling the early post-mortem metabolism of myopathic muscles. However, despite all the efforts conducted by researchers during the past decade, no effective solutions able to contrast the onset of myopathies have been found yet. Within this context, it seems unavoidable taking a step back, as further genetic improvements might be restrained by muscle biological potential and animal welfare concerns. In this scenario, since solving the issue at the root appears complex so far, further researches should be addressed at finding processing solutions able to reduce the negative implications of abnormalities on the quality and technological properties of meat.