Thai Native Chicken as a Potential Functional Meat Source Rich in Anserine, Anserine/Carnosine, and Antioxidant Substances

Simple Summary Potential bioactive compounds are properties that can play an important role in the prevention of chronic diseases, exhibit neuroprotective effects, and have antioxidant, anti-aging, and antiglycation properties. Anserine (beta-alanyl-3-methyl-L-histidine) and carnosine (beta-alanyl-L-histidine), dipeptides found in native chicken meat, are good sources of antioxidant substances. Anserine is a biomarker in the muscle of chickens, making native chicken meat a source of antioxidant compounds. However, there are no studies on bioactive compounds in Thai native chickens. This study was conducted to identify the presence of dipeptide anserine in Thai native and Thai native crossbred chicken meat using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and to determine the antioxidant activity of chicken breast extract. We found that Thai native chicken was rich in anserine, anserine/carnosine, and antioxidant substances; therefore, Thai native chicken might have the potential to be a functional meat source. This study identified anserine and anserine/carnosine in chicken breast of Thai native chicken (TNC; 100% Thai native), Thai synthetic chicken (TSC; 50% Thai native), and Thai native crossbred chicken (TNC crossbred; 25% Thai native) compared with commercial broiler chicken (BR; 0% Thai native) using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and the effect on antioxidant activity using 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl assay (DPPH). We conducted experiments with a completely randomized design and explored principal components analysis (PCA) and orthogonal projection to latent structure-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) to identify the distinguishing metabolites and relative concentrations from H-1 NMR spectra among the groups. The relative concentrations and antioxidant properties among the groups were analyzed by analysis of variance (ANOVA) using the general linear model (GLM). This study revealed seven metabolites alanine, inositol monophosphate (IMP), inosine, and anserine/carnosine, lactate, anserine, and creatine. Lactate, anserine, and creatine were major components. In terms of PCA, the plots can distinguish BR from other groups. OPLS-DA revealed that anserine and anserine/carnosine in the chicken breast were significantly higher in TNC, TSC, and TNC crossbred than BR according to their relative concentrations and antioxidant properties (p < 0.01). Therefore, TNCs and their crossbreeds might have the potential to be functional meat sources.

Automated summary

This study identified the presence of anserine in Thai native chickens and their crossbred meat, demonstrating their potential as functional meat sources rich in anserine and antioxidants. The research used nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to distinguish metabolites and relative concentrations, showing significantly higher levels of anserine in Thai native and crossbred chicken compared to commercial broiler chickens.