ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Animal Nutrition and Metabolism
Integrated Analysis of Transcriptome and Metabolome Reveals the Molecular Interactions and Regulation of Muscle Flavor Precursors in Tengchong Snow Chickens and AA Broilers
Min Yang 1
Ruifang Zhang 1
Jingying Zhao 1,2
Zonghui Jian 1,3
Hao Wu 1
Shaoxiong Lu 1
Kun Wang 1
Zhiqiang Xu 1
Changrong Ge 1
Junjing Jia 1
Lixian Liu 2
Tengfei Dou 1
1. Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, China
2. Chuxiong Normal University, Chuxiong, China
3. Yunnan Vocational and Technical College of Agriculture, Kunming, China
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Abstract
Background The flavor of chicken meat is formed by a series of complex chemical reactions, and the flavor precursors are affected by regulatory genes. In order to study the differences of muscle flavor precursors between Tengchong snow chickens and AA broilers, integrated metabolomics and transcriptomics analyses were used to investigate analyze muscle metabolite profilesthe differences of muscle metabolites and the key genes involved in affecting the metabolism of muscle flavor compoundssubstances. Results The results showed that 42 significantly differentially expressed metabolites were detected, and (5-L-Glutamyl)-L-glutamate, gamma-Glutamylalanine, S-Adenosylhomocysteine, Homo-L-arginineglutamate, glutamine, cysteine, arginine, and GMP were important flavor metabolites. The key candidate regulatory genes with high correlation with flavor precursor metabolites were identified through correlation analysis as NME2, AMPD1, GADL1, ASNS, CARNS1, and CTH. In addition, the gene-metabolite interaction network for muscle mass and flavor formation in chicken breast muscle was constructed. Conclusions In this study, the key metabolites and candidate genes involved in the formation of chicken muscle flavor precursors were revealed through a comprehensive analysis of muscle metabolome and transcriptome. This study can could provide some basic data for the formation mechanism of local chicken excellent meat quality, and provide reference for the development and utilization of local chicken breeds and the selection and breeding of high-quality broilers in the plateau.
Summary
Keywords
flavor Flavor precursors, Integrated analysis, Metabolomics, Tengchong Snow chicken, Ttranscriptomics
Received
04 December 2025
Accepted
17 February 2026
Copyright
© 2026 Yang, Zhang, Zhao, Jian, Wu, Lu, Wang, Xu, Ge, Jia, Liu and Dou. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Tengfei Dou
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