Department of Applied Biological Chemistry, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8657, Japan.
Yamagata Prefectural Animal Industrial Institute, Agricultural Research Center, Shinjo, Yamagata, 996-0041, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2017 May 2;7(1):1297. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-01272-8.
Analytical methodologies to comprehensively evaluate beef quality are increasingly needed to accelerate improvement in both breeding and post-mortem processing. Consumer palatability towards beef is generally attributed to tenderness, flavor, and/or juiciness. These primary qualities are modified by post-mortem aging and the crude content and fatty acid composition of intramuscular fat. In this study, we report a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based metabolic profiles of Japanese Black cattle to evaluate the compositional attributes of intramuscular fat and the long-term post-mortem aging. The unsaturation degree of triacylglycerol was estimated by the H NMR spectra and was correlated with the content ratio of unsaturated fatty acids (R = 0.944) and the melting point of intramuscular fat (R = 0.871). NMR-detected profiles of water-soluble metabolites revealed overall metabolic change (R = 0.951) and several metabolites (R > 0.818) linearly correlated with long-term aging duration, which can be used to evaluate the aging rate and aging duration of beef. This approach also provided the pH profile during aging, which is related to the water-holding capacity of beef. Thus, NMR-based metabolomics has the potential to evaluate multiple parameters related to the beef qualities of Japanese Black cattle.
为了加速改良育种和宰后处理，我们越来越需要全面评估牛肉质量的分析方法。消费者对牛肉的口感一般归因于嫩度、风味和/或多汁性。这些主要品质会受到宰后成熟和肌肉内脂肪的粗成分及脂肪酸组成的影响。在本研究中，我们报告了基于核磁共振（NMR）的日本黑牛代谢谱，以评估肌肉内脂肪的组成特性和长期的宰后成熟度。通过 H NMR 图谱估计三酰基甘油的不饱和度，并与不饱和脂肪酸的含量比（R = 0.944）和肌肉内脂肪的熔点（R = 0.871）相关联。NMR 检测到的水溶性代谢物图谱揭示了整体代谢变化（R = 0.951）和几个代谢物（R > 0.818）与长期成熟时间呈线性相关，可用于评估牛肉的成熟速率和成熟时间。该方法还提供了成熟过程中的 pH 图谱，这与牛肉的持水能力有关。因此，基于 NMR 的代谢组学有可能评估与日本黑牛牛肉质量相关的多个参数。
