Water-holding capacity, texture and color are important indicators of fresh meat quality. In China, drip loss and textural deterioration of fresh meat are critical problems in the meat industry, causing greater quality loss than that in developed countries. Recently, researchers have identified a series of potential biomarkers for the water-holding capacity and tenderness of meat and have studied the effect of cell apoptosis on meat tenderness. However, the relationship between ferroptosis and fresh meat quality has been researched little. After slaughter, the intramuscular environment alters and ferroptosis occurs, which is characterized by the accumulation of iron, an increase in lipid oxidation and disruption of redox equilibrium. These changes are closely related to meat quality. This paper reviews the characteristics, metabolic pathways and regulatory mechanisms of ferroptosis, and the crosslinks between ferroptosis and other modes of cell death. Moreover, it elaborates on how ferroptosis affects fresh meat quality through iron homeostasis imbalance, redox imbalance and lipoperoxidation. Overall, this review provides deeper insights into the mechanism of meat quality formation during postmortem aging.

The present study used principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis to comprehensively investigate the effect of yellow-feathered broilers with different growth rates, namely slow-growing, medium-growing, fast-growing and spent broiler breeders, on quality of chicken broths. To this end, the yield, dry matter content, soluble solid content, turbidity, sodium content, free amino acids (FAA) contents and flavor nucleotide contents of chicken broths from different broiler breeds were compared. Results showed that slow-growing yellow-feathered broiler broth had significantly higher sodium content, turbidity, dry matter content and soluble solid content (P < 0.05) and lower yield than broths from the other breeds. Analysis of flavor substances revealed that fast-growing yellow-feathered broiler broth had significantly higher total FAA content (P < 0.05) with taste activity value (TAV) greater than 1 for glutamic acid (Glu) and histidine (His) as the main flavor contributors; slow-growing yellow-feathered broiler broth contained significantly higher total amount of flavor nucleotide contents (P < 0.05) with TAV greater than 1 for inosine 5’-monophosphate (IMP) as the major flavor nucleotide.Fast-growing yellow-feathered broiler broth had the highest equivalent umami concentration (EUC), indicating the strongest umami taste. A comprehensive evaluation model for chicken broth quality was established by PCA as follows: Y = (0.6224Y₁ + 0.25589Y₂)/0.87829 and was verified by cluster analysis. Fast-growing yellow-feathered broiler broth was found to have the best comprehensive quality. In conclusion, fast-growing yellow-feathered broilers were most suitable for making chicken broth, followed by medium-growing and slow-growing yellow-feathered broilers, and spent broiler breeders were least suitable for making chicken broth.