Postmortem calcium chloride injection alters ultrastructure and improves tenderness of mature Chinese Yellow Cattle longissimus muscle

Baohua Kong, Xinping Diao, Youling L. Xiong

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

This study was conducted to test the hypothesis that postmortem calcium injection could activate the calpain system in mature Chinese Yellow Cattle muscle, thereby promoting meat tenderization through disruption of the myofibril structure during aging. A 10% (w/w) injection of CaCl2 (300 mM) solution lowered the Warner-Bratzler shear values of longissimus muscle by more than 30% (P < 0.05), even with only 24 h postmortem storage when compared with noninjected or water-injected controls. The accelerated meat tenderization by the Ca2+ treatment paralleled the changes in myofibril fragmentation index and fracture of the myofibril ultrastructure throughout the sarcomere but most notably around the I-bands and the Z-disks. Injection of ZnCl2 (50 mM) largely inhibited these proteolytic changes. The colorimetric L* and a* values were not affected by CaCl2 nor by ZnCl2 injection. The results suggest that postmortem CaCl 2 injection can be used to help resolve the toughness problem of mature Chinese Yellow Cattle meat and shorten the aging time required to achieve adequate tenderness.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)C124-C129
JournalJournal of Food Science
Volume71
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2006

Keywords

  • Beef
  • Calcium
  • Calpain
  • Chinese Yellow Cattle
  • Proteolysis
  • Tenderness

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Food Science

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