Dietary rutin improves the meat quality of cold-stressed chicken breasts by improving the oxidative stability and gelation properties of myofibrillar proteins.

The objective of this study was to examine the impact of dietary rutin supplementation on the physicochemical changes and gel properties of myofibrillar proteins (MP) derived from chicken breast muscle in broilers subjected to cold stress. 360 one-day-old male AA broilers were randomly assigned to four groups, each with six replicates of 15 birds: a control group (CON) kept at 26 ± 2 °C on a basal diet, and three groups subjected to a temperature drop to 10 ± 2 °C with diets supplemented with 0, 500, and 1000 mg/kg rutin (CS, CS + Rut500, and CS + Rut1000, respectively). The experiment lasted 42 days. The results demonstrate that rutin mitigated oxidative denaturation of MP in cold-stressed broiler chicken breasts. The specific performance is to enhance solubility, reduce hydrophobicity and carbonyls, slow loss of sulfhydryl and free amino groups. Rutin also protected against structural protein modifications due to cold stress. Regarding gel properties, rutin enhanced gel strength, whiteness, and water retention of cold-stressed broiler chicken breasts. Microstructurally, rutin preserved a homogeneous and dense MP gel network structure in cold-stressed broilers. Collectively, these findings suggest that rutin as a feed additive could enhance the quality of chicken meat from cold-stressed broilers by improving oxidative stability and MP gel properties.