Beijing Engineering and Technology Research Center of Food Additives, School of Food and Health, Beijing Technology and Business University, 100048 Beijing, China; Department of Food and Nutrition, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland.
Department of Animal Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, 47907, IN, United States.
Meat Sci. 2022 Aug;190:108841. doi: 10.1016/j.meatsci.2022.108841. Epub 2022 May 4.
Formation of thaw loss cannot generally be avoided when meat is frozen and then thawed. Explanations have mainly focused on the damage to muscle fibers resulting from ice crystallization and the freezing-induced denaturation of myofibrillar proteins, the latter of which has, however, not received much research focus. This review discusses the relationship between myofibrillar protein denaturation and water-holding capacity of meat in freezing-thawing with the aim to improve the understanding the relative importance of protein denaturation in the formation of thaw loss. The contribution of decreased pH and high ionic strength in the unfrozen water in freezing is emphasized and we hypothesize that these two factors are causing protein denaturation and conformational changes within muscle fibers, and consequently loss of water-holding capacity. Slow freezing produces more thaw loss than fast freezing, and this is discussed here in relation to the impacts on myofibrillar protein denaturation induced by the freezing rate.
当肉被冷冻和解冻时，通常无法避免解冻损失的形成。解释主要集中在冰晶形成对肌肉纤维的损伤和肌原纤维蛋白的冷冻诱导变性上，然而，后者并没有得到太多的研究关注。本综述讨论了在冷冻和解冻过程中肌原纤维蛋白变性与肉的保水性之间的关系，旨在提高对蛋白质变性在解冻损失形成中的相对重要性的理解。强调了未冻结水中 pH 值降低和离子强度升高对冷冻的贡献，我们假设这两个因素导致肌肉纤维内的蛋白质变性和构象变化，从而导致保水性丧失。缓慢冷冻比快速冷冻产生更多的解冻损失，这与冷冻速率对肌原纤维蛋白变性的影响有关。
