Equations for spectrophotometric determination of relative concentrations of myoglobin derivatives in aqueous tuna meat extracts.

The percentage of metmyoglobin (%metMb) in aqueous meat extracts of bigeye and bluefin tuna and beef samples were estimated using previously reported equations derived from the absorption spectra of horse Mb. The results demonstrate that in an aqueous extract, the difference in %metMb estimated by the different equations was negligible for beef samples. Conversely, in an aqueous tuna extract, different %metMb values were obtained with the different equations. The discrepancy in the tuna sample results might be due to differences in absorption spectra for horse and tuna Mb. Therefore, a new set of equations derived from the absorption spectra of bigeye tuna Mb, reported by Matsuura and Hashimoto (1955), was established. The accuracy of the proposed equations was compared with the cyanmetmyoglobin (cyanmetMb) method. The results show that the total Mb concentrations estimated by our proposed equations were in good agreement with the results obtained by the conventional cyanmetMb method (R(2)=0.984). Therefore, the new set of proposed equations is valid for the spectrophotometric determination of the relative proportions of Mb derivatives and total Mb concentration in aqueous tuna meat extracts.