Protein co-expression network analysis explores biological mechanisms associated with meat quality variability in broilers affected by breast myopathies: A focus on wooden breast

Growth-related myopathies affecting fast-growing broilers still represent a challenge for the poultry industry, and the need for comprehensive and additional knowledge useful to mitigate the occurrence of these myopathies persists. This study aimed at exploring the association between the proteome profiles and the meat quality traits (i.e., weight, morphometric parameters, pHu, color, and compression force) of broiler breast fillets affected by the white striping (WS), wooden breast (WB), and spaghetti meat (SM), as well as the normal ones (NB), by applying the WGCNA approach (N = 12). The co-expression network analysis detected 10 color-coded modules of co-expressed proteins significantly correlated with the meat quality traits, particularly characterizing the WB defect in terms of meat quality differences, and thus leading to a focus on this specific myopathy for data interpretation. The brown, turquoise, green, and black modules were significantly correlated with at least three of the phenotypic traits and thus considered for further investigations. The outcomes were largely in accordance with a wealth of literature regarding transcriptomic and proteomic characterizations of breast muscles affected by these myopathies, evidencing proteins entering these modules enriched with terms involved in mitochondrial and antioxidant activities, as well as collagen composition and extracellular matrix organization. Furthermore, based on the results gained through the protein co-expression analysis, different roles between fibrillar and nonfibrillar collagens in the characterization of the WB condition have been hypothesized, as well as an impairment of the molecular processes involved in protein synthesis and quality-control, mainly regarding the eIF3 complex.