title: The effect of active caspase-3 on degradation of chicken myofibrillar proteins and structure of myofibrils.
abstract: The objective of this study was to investigate the potential contribution of caspase-3 to meat postmortem tenderisation by examining the role of caspase-3 in the degradation of myofibrillar proteins and disruption of myofibril structure in vitro. Myofibrillar protein prepared from chicken muscle was incubated with EDTA or EDTA plus caspase-3 at 25°C for 16h and used for detecting muscle protein degradation and ultrastructure of myofibril. Results revealed that caspase-3 reproduced the degradation patterns of titin, nebulin and α-actinin during postmortem storage of meat, but caused little proteolysis of desmin and no appearance of 28-30kDa peptides. Meanwhile, caspase-3 also induced the weakening in the I band adjacent to Z-lines, which occurred during meat postmortem ageing. Therefore, caspase-3 could account only for a part of the myofibrillar protein degradation observed in naturally aged meat and is likely involved in postmortem tenderisation of meat together with other endogenous proteases.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Meat Processing and Quality Control, Ministry of Education China, College of Food Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China.
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Meat Processing and Quality Control, Ministry of Education China, College of Food Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Meat Processing and Quality Control, Ministry of Education China, College of Food Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China.
authors.forename: Mei
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Xue
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Meat Processing and Quality Control, Ministry of Education China, College of Food Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China.
authors.forename: Xinglian
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Meat Processing and Quality Control, Ministry of Education China, College of Food Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China. Electronic address: ghzhou@njau.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Guanghong
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhou
keywords: Caspase-3; Chicken muscle; Myofibrillar proteins; Tenderisation; Ultrastructure