Effect of postmortem storage on shear force value and calpain/calpastatin activity in longissimus dorsi muscle of rusa deer (cervus timorensis)

¹ Department of Animal Production Technology and Fishery, Faculty of Agricultural Technology, King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Bangkok, Thailand
² Department of Agricultural Education, Faculty of Industrial Education and Technology, King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Bangkok, Thailand

^* Corresponding author: kanyatran@gmail.com

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine the effects of aging period on shear force values and activities of calpain/calpastatin enzymes of the longissimus dorsi (LD) muscle from rusa deer (Cervus timorensis). The shear force values were measured with instron materials testing machine. Results showed that postmortem storage influenced meat tenderness with a highly significant reduction of shear force value from 9.01±0.83 kg/cm² at day 1 to 4.34±0.10 kg/cm² at day 21 (P<0.01). Determination of the enzyme activities indicated that the μ-calpain activity decreased significantly from 1.50±0.42 to 0.19±0.28 units/g of meat (P<0.01), whereas m-calpain activity (22.88±9.64 to 16.95±8.34 units/g of meat) and calpastatin activity (9.93±2.37 to 6.82±2.96 units/g of meat) slightly decreased (P>0.05). Shear force values were significant correlated with higher levels of μ-calpain (r=0.915) and m-calpain (r=0.758), respectively. However, the values were not significant related to the calpastatin activity (r=0.462). Therefore, this study confirmed that in the case of rusa deer, μ-calpain is a key factor controlling postmortem meat tenderness compared to m-calpain and calpastatin. The results suggested that storage of the rusa deer meat for 7 days is enough to achieve aging of the LD muscle, which may help to reduce the cost of meat production.