title: A simple centrifugal dehydration force method to characterize water compartments in fresh and post-mortem fish muscle.
abstract: A centrifugal dehydration force (CDF) method to quantify changes in tissue hydration in fresh and in post-mortem muscular fish tail tissue is presented. The data obtained were used to assess fluid flow rate from tissues and the size of hydration compartments expressed in g water/g dry mass (DM). Curve fit analysis demonstrated that muscle tissue has three detectable water compartments. Application of the method to the fresh fish indicated the presence of a large non-bulk water compartment (3.14 g water/g DM) with a much smaller (0.11 g water/g DM) inner non-bulk water sub-compartment in addition to a comparatively small bulk water compartment (0.99 g water/g DM). At 10 min and at 4h post-mortem, no significant change in size or flow rate of the water compartments was observed. At 24h post-mortem the muscular fish tissue, stored in water, swelled with statistically significant increase in total water and in the bulk water compartment but no significant change in the size of the non-bulk water compartments. The water flow rate from the non-bulk water compartment was, however, increased significantly in the 24h dead tissue. This simple CDF method has application for quantization of bulk and non-bulk water compartments in other biological and non-biological systems.
authors.affiliation: Cellular and Structural Biology Department, The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, 7703 Floyd Curl Drive, San Antonio, TX 78229-3900, USA. cameron@uthscsa.edu
authors.forename: Ivan L
authors.initials: IL
authors.lastname: Cameron
authors.forename: Nicholas J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Short
authors.forename: Gary D
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Fullerton
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001834:Body Water / Q000737:chemistry*; D003890:Desiccation; D007700:Kinetics; D008297:Male; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000166:cytology* / Q000473:pathology*; D011180:Postmortem Changes; D013131:Spine; D013997:Time Factors; D015027:Zebrafish