Unraveling the impact of heat stress on meat quality: integrating physiology, epigenetics, and postmortem biochemistry

Heat stress (HS) compromises meat quality through species-specific physiological and epigenetic mechanisms during the growth period. This review investigates how antemortem disruption in energy metabolism, oxidative stress, and proteolysis caused by HS drives diverse postmortem outcomes in poultry, ruminants, and swine. Therefore, these biochemical shifts induced by HS affect consumer preferences for meat, and the direction of change varies across livestock species.