Ting Lu¹, Changyun Cai¹, Wenjie Li¹, Yanhao Zhao², Muhammad Zahoor Khan¹, Muhammad Faheem Akhtar¹, Xingzhen Qi¹, Lanjie Li¹, Yaqian Jin¹, Xue Chen^1,, Guiqin Liu^1,

Donkey meat and beef are considered rich sources of protein. However, limited information is currently available on the comparative compositional analysis of these two meat types. In this paper, Tandem Mass Tag (TMT) was used to investigate the difference in the proteomes of Dezhou donkey meat and Luxi cattle meat. Our results showed that donkey meat exhibited significantly higher protein content compared to beef (p<0.05), while the fat content of beef was higher than that of donkey meat (p<0.01). Furthermore, the contents of acetic acid and isobutyric acid were significantly higher in beef than in donkey meat (p<0.05), whereas the levels of butyric acid and valeric acid were more abundant in donkey meat (p<0.05). Furthermore, using proteomic analysis, we identified a total of 1328 differentially expressed proteins (DEPs), which may contribute to subtle variations in the quality of beef and donkey meat. Notably, proteins such as collagen, calpain, troponin, desmin, myoglobin and glycolytic enzymes phosphoglucomutase 1, aldolase, triosephosphate isomerase 1 were identified, suggesting their potential roles in influencing meat quality. In addition, the study highlighted that pathways related to glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation were predominantly associated with muscle energy metabolism. Overall, this study provides a comprehensive proteomic profile of donkey meat and beef, advancing our understanding of the molecular determinants of meat quality and flavor.

Dezhou donkey, Luxi yellow cattle, proteomics, meat quality，SCFAs