Quality evaluation and lipidomics analysis of salted duck egg yolk under low-salt pickling process

Lipids play an important role in the salting process of duck eggs. In this research, the low-salt pickling process was employed to salt duck eggs, and the quality parameters, fatty acids and lipidomics were analyzed. The low-salt pickling process maintained the quality of the salted duck egg yolk, and can be regard as a healthy alternative to the traditional curing process. After salting, levels of saturated fatty acid (SFA), monounsaturated fatty acid (MFA) and polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) were increased by 57.77%, 41.59%, and 23.20%, respectively. The lipidomics data showed significant differences in 39 lipids in the phospholipid family during the low-salt pickling process of egg yolk (p < 0.05), in which lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC), lysophosphatidylethanolamine (LPE) and phosphatidylcholine (PC) were defined as differential lipid after low-salt pickling, and the levels of LPC and LPE were increased. Thus, phospholipids might be responsible for the unique quality of salted duck egg yolk.