Identification of meat quality-related differentially methylated regions in the DNA of the muscle in pig.

The objective of this study was to investigate the association of DNA methylation with postmortem energy metabolism and the pH of the porcine muscle (LDM). Analysis of the DNA methylome of eight LDM samples (four pairs of the highest and lowest pH among littermates) identified a total of 3468 differentially methylated regions (DMRs) between high and low pH samples ( ≤ 0.001). Of DMRs, 45.3% co-mapped with quantitative trait loci known to be associated with meat pH and postmortem metabolism. Among the DMRs, 203 hyper-methylated regions (HR) and 190 hypo-methylated regions (HO) were identified for the high pH group compared to the low pH. Furthermore, 44 and 21 protein-coding genes contained HR and HO in their gene body, respectively. It was revealed that , , and , which encode core enzymes in postmortem energy metabolism, contained HR or HO in their gene body.