Histology, composition, and quality traits of chicken Pectoralis major muscle affected by wooden breast abnormality

Abstract

Only a few years ago, the poultry industry began to face a recent abnormality in breast meat, known as wooden breast, which frequently overlaps with white striping. This study aimed to assess the impact of wooden breast abnormality on quality traits of meat. For this purpose, 32 normal (NRM), 32 wooden (WB), and 32 wooden and white-striped (WB/WS) Pectoralis major muscles were selected from the same flock of heavy broilers (males, Ross 708, weighing around 3.7 kg) in the deboning area of a commercial processing plant at 3 h postmortem and used to assess histology, proximate (moisture, protein, fat, ash, and collagen) and mineral composition (Mg, K, P, Na and Ca), sarcoplasmic and myofibrillar protein patterns, and technological traits of breast meat. Compared to the normal group, WB/WS fillets showed more severe histological lesions characterized by fiber degeneration, fibrosis, and lipidosis, coupled with a significantly harder texture. With regard to proximate and mineral composition, abnormal samples exhibited significantly (P < 0.001) higher moisture, fat, and collagen contents coupled with lower (P < 0.001) amounts of protein and ash. Furthermore, increased calcium (131 vs. 84 mg kg(-1); P < 0.05) and sodium (741 vs. 393 mg kg(-1); P < 0.001) levels were found in WB/WS meat samples. The SDS-PAGE analysis revealed a significantly lower amount of calcium-ATPase (SERCA, 114 kDa), responsible for the translocation of Ca ions across the membrane, in normal breasts compared to abnormal ones. As for meat quality traits, fillets affected by wooden abnormality exhibited significantly (P < 0.001) higher ultimate pH and lower water-holding/water-binding capacity. In particular, compared to normal, abnormal samples showed reduced marinade uptake coupled with increased drip loss and cooking losses as well. In conclusion, this study revealed that meat affected by wooden breast or both wooden breast and white striping abnormalities exhibit poorer nutritional value, harder texture, and impaired water-holding capacity.

Effect of "Wooden Breast" appearance on poultry meat quality, histological traits, and lesions characterization

“…It is likely that, as previously observed in WS condition (Petracci et al 2014), the functional proteins content, responsible for meat WHC is lowered in favour of collagen (Dalle Zotte et al 2014;Petracci et al 2015). This hypothesis found confirmation in the work by Soglia et al (2016a), which showed a higher collagen and lower protein contents in chicken breast muscles affected by WB abnormality compared to normal ones. This replacement results in a significant impairment of protein functionality and water retention of cooked meat, despite collagen proteins shorten, swell, solubilize during the cooking process and gelatinize when cooled (Palka 1999;Tornberg 2005), thus keeping an amount of water.…”

“…Despite the results of a recent work by Soglia et al (2016a) showed that WB chicken breasts exhibited higher hardness, gumminess, and chewiness than normal ones, shear force values of the affected cooked breasts of the present experiment did not correspond to the palpatory hardness perceived at the fresh and thawed state; these results are in accordance with those of Mudalal et al (2015). The extensive poor cohesion and the tendency of the fibre bundles to separate, mainly at the cranial level, could have mitigated the expected hardness (Petracci and Cavani 2012;Petracci et al 2013).…”

“…Therefore, a breast with greater size could exhibit a reduced glycolytic potential, resulting in higher ultimate pH. In fact, it was recently hypothesized that the high pH of WB fillets could be related to an altered glycogen utilization which would result in glycogen depletion (Soglia et al 2016a). Differently, breast redder portions could be related to a higher myoglobin content: the fibre-type switching phenomenon, which was found to occur in WB condition, seemed to lead to a higher expression of myoglobin genes (Mutryn et al 2015).…”

Effect of salt content on gelation of normal and wooden breast myopathy chicken pectoralis major meat batters

“…Salt may contribute to the solubilisation of myofibrillar proteins (MPs), depolymerisation of myofilaments and dissociation of the actomyosin complex (Lo Nostro & Ninham, ). WB impairs the muscle structure and causes different MP patterns (Soglia et al ., ). Thus, determining the functional and technological properties of meat using various salt additions for the manufacture of comminuted products is significant.…”

“…Recent studies indicated that WB abnormality affects the quality and functional properties of meat considerably. For example, compared with raw normal fillets, raw WB fillets exhibit lower water holding capacity (WHC) and different chemical composition and protein functionalities (Soglia et al ., , ). Meanwhile, the use of WB in manufacturing finely comminuted products remains uncertain.…”