Integrated Transcriptomic and Metabolomic Reveals VASH1 Influences Pork Quality by Regulating Skeletal Muscle Gly-colysis

Glycolytic potential (GP) is an important index for evaluating meat quality in the pig in-dustry, since high muscle glycogen content generally leads to rapid postmortem glycolysis, which contributes to low meat quality. However, there are few researches to elucidate the genetic mechanisms underlie pig skeletal muscle glycolysis. This study represents the first investigation into the mechanisms of skeletal muscle glycolysis, integrating gene expres-sion and metabolic profiles in Jinhua (JH) and Landrace and Yorkshire hybrid (LY) pigs across three growth periods (1, 90 and 180 days after postpartum) using multi-omics techniques. The results revealed that JH pigs exhibit lower intramuscular glycogen content than LY pigs throughout the growth period (p < 0.05). Increased phosphorylated glycogen synthase (p-GS) expression indicated reduced glycogenesis capacity in JH pigs. Transcriptomic analysis demonstrated that differential expression genes (DEGs) between JH and LY pigs were significantly enriched in glycolysis, glycogenesis, and the TCA cycle, with these pathways exhibiting inhibition in JH pigs. Metabolomic analysis identified that fla-vor-related metabolites such as lipids and amino acids were increased but carbohydrate metabolites were decreased in JH pigs relative to LY pigs. Through integrated analysis between genes and metabolites, we identified VASH1 as a key regulator of skeletal muscle glycolysis. Mechanistically, VASH1 knockdown promoting glucose metabolism through enhanced glycolysis and glycogenesis through AMPK signaling pathway in myoblasts. Our findings provided novel insights into the genetic basis of meat quality and identify VASH1 as a potential target for genetic selection to improve pork quality.