Changes in transcriptome of goat muscle during frozen, ice‐temperature and chilled storage within 7 days

Abstract

This study aimed to use high-throughput Illumina Hiseq4000 sequencing to reveal transcriptome changes of longissimus thoracis of goats in frozen storage (À20 to À18°C, FS), ice-temperature storage (À1.5 to À0.5°C, IS) and chilled storage (2-4°C, CS) within 7 days postmortem. Hierarchical cluster and correlation analysis showed that transcriptome of FS changed little, and IS was suitable for 7 days' storage. There were 27 continuously differentially expressed genes (DEGs) (fold change ≥2, P < 0.05) over time, and 10 genes were up-regulated and 17 genes were down-regulated. Among them, expression amounts of WTIP, PLK3, LOC108635411 and NHSL1 were negatively correlated with shear force, L*, a* and b*, respectively, and CD3E was positively correlated with a*. Bioinformatics analysis indicated that DEGs with increasing storage temperature were mainly involved in energy production and conversion, phosphorylation and apoptosis. This study provided a new perspective for understanding the underlying mechanism of goat meat quality after slaughter.