Abstract: Liquid chromatography-quadruple time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC-QTOF-MS) combined with orthogonal partial least square (OPLS) was used for metabolite analysis in chilled chicken (stored for 1, 3, 5, 7 and 10 days) and fresh chicken. Twenty-nine differential compounds including amino acids, peptides, fatty acids and nucleotides were obtained in the experiment. With increasing storage period, the contents of phenylalanine, tryptophan, palmitic acid and eicosatetraenoic acid were significantly increased, while the contents of L-carnosine, L-anserine and 5’-IMP were significantly decreased. Moreover, chilled chicken stored for less than 5 days had more similarity with fresh chicken in metabolite composition. This study indicates that it is feasible to discriminate chilled from fresh chicken using metabolomics based on LC-QTOF-MS combined with OPLS model, which provides a novel idea for exploring metabolites in chilled chicken, and provides data support for the quality control and evaluation of chilled chicken.

Key words: chilled chicken; fresh chicken; storage time; metabolites; orthogonal partial least square