Metabolomics, network pharmacology, and microbiome analyses uncover the mechanisms of the Chinese herbal formula for the improvement of meat quality in spent hens

作者：Zhihua Li, Md. Abul Kalam Azad, Chengwen Meng, Xiangfeng Kong, Jue Gui, Wenchao Lin, Yadong Cui, Wei Lan, Q. He · 发表于：Journal of Animal Science and Biotechnology/Journal of animal science and biotechnology · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1186/s40104-025-01150-8 · 被引用次数：6 · 研究领域：Animal Nutrition and Physiology、Meat and Animal Product Quality、Metabolomics and Mass Spectrometry Studies

BACKGROUND: Meat originating from the spent hen is an important source of poultry meat production; however, multiple factors cause the decline in the meat quality of spent hens. Chinese herbs have been widely used as medicine for a long time to prevent diseases and as nutrient supplements to improve the product quality. This experiment explored the effects of adding 1.0% Chinese herbal formula (CHF, including 0.30% Leonurus japonicus Houtt., 0.20% Salvia miltiorrhiza Bge., 0.25% Ligustrum lucidum Ait., and 0.25% Taraxacum mongolicum Hand.-Mazz.) for 120 d to the spent hens' diet through metabolomics, network pharmacology, and microbiome strategies. RESULTS: The results indicated that CHF supplementation improved the meat quality by reducing drip loss (P < 0.05), b* value (P = 0.058), and shear force (P = 0.099) and increasing cooked meat percentage (P = 0.054) and dry matter (P < 0.05) of breast muscle. The addition of CHF improved the nutritional value of breast muscle by increasing (P < 0.05) the content of C18:2n-6, n-6/n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), total PUFA, PUFA-to-saturated fatty acids (SFA) ratio, and hypocholesterolemic-to-hypercholesterolemic ratio, and tending to increase serine content (P = 0.069). The targeted metabolomics analysis revealed that the biosynthesis of SFA, linoleic acid metabolism, fatty acid degradation, fatty acid elongation, and fatty acid biosynthesis pathways were enriched by CHF supplementation. Furthermore, the network pharmacology...