Predicting glycogen concentration in the foot muscle of abalone using near infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS).

Near infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) was used to predict glycogen concentrations in the foot muscle of cultured abalone. NIR spectra of live, shucked and freeze-dried abalones were modelled against chemically measured glycogen data (range: 0.77-40.9% of dry weight (DW)) using partial least squares (PLS) regression. The calibration models were then used to predict glycogen concentrations of test abalone samples and model robustness was assessed from coefficient of determination of the validation (R2(val)) and standard error of prediction (SEP) values. The model for freeze-dried abalone gave the best prediction (R2(val) 0.97, SEP=1.71), making it suitable for quantifying glycogen. Models for live and shucked abalones had R2(val) of 0.86 and 0.90, and SEP of 3.46 and 3.07 respectively, making them suitable for producing estimations of glycogen concentration. As glycogen is a taste-active component associated with palatability in abalone, this study demonstrated the potential of NIRS as a rapid method to monitor the factors associated with abalone quality.