title: Apoptosis during postmortem conditioning and its relationship to duck meat quality.
abstract: The aim of this work was to examine the relationship of skeletal muscle apoptosis and postmortem development of meat quality. Colour, cooking loss, myofibril fragmentation index (MFI) and shear force of duck breast and thigh meat postmortem were measured, and changes of positive nuclei were assessed with Terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated deoxyuridine triphosphophate nick end-labelling method (TUNEL). Correlation analysis revealed that apoptosis were positively correlated with colour (L(*), a(*) and b(*)), cooking loss and MFI (P<0.05), while it is negatively correlated with shear force (P<0.05). Our results indicate the growing level of duck skeletal muscle cell apoptosis was associated with the postmortem development of meat quality traits such as meat colour, water holding capacity and tenderness.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Agricultural Products Processing, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanjing 210014, PR China.
authors.forename: Muhan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Daoying
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Fang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Yongzhi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Weimin
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Jinxuan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cao
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017209:Apoptosis; D004372:Ducks / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology*; D008460:Meat / Q000032:analysis*; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000166:cytology; D011180:Postmortem Changes; D011786:Quality Control