Coping with the PSE syndrome in poultry meat

Introduction: PSE syndrome regards to meat defects. It is generally described as a major defect affecting the colour (paler than normal), the texture (softer than normal) and the water holding capacity (lower than normal) of the meat. All these quality issues are becoming a concern to the industry. PSE syndrome has first been described in pork mainly since the beginning of the 60’s and more recently (in the 90’s) in poultry, essentially in turkeys and chickens. In may 2007, a request (over the last 20 years) as “PSE meat” on the PubMed web site (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/) gave one hundred responses: 2/3 of them concerned pig and the remaining 1/3 poultry with 15 papers concerning turkeys and 15 concerning chickens. If the syndrome seems to be well described and understood in pork, it is not the same case in poultry because no definitive paper has yet been published to give a clear ethology of what is sometimes still called PSE-like syndrome. In this paper, we will try to draw what seems to be more or less clear with the PSE syndrome in poultry and first try to give an appropriate definition of it. Then, we will examine all the known consequences of its presence on meat quality and the related consequence for poultry industry. Finally, we will examine some possible hypotheses which have been investigated to explain its presence within certain flocks of birds.