Associations of Apoptotic and Anti-Apoptotic Factors with Beef Quality, Histochemical Characteristics, and Palatability of Hanwoo <i>Longissimus thoracis</i> Muscle

Abstract

This study compared the meat quality, histochemical traits, palatability, and expression levels of apoptotic (cytochrome c and caspases) and anti-apoptotic (small heat shock proteins) factors at 45 min and 24 h post-mortem of Hanwoo Longissimus thoracis muscles in groups categorized by Warner-Bratzler shear force (WBS) values to investigate the association between beef tenderness variation and apoptosis-related molecules. There were no differences in marbling scores, meat quality traits, or histochemical characteristics among the WBS groups (p > 0.05) indicating no significant effect on the tenderness variation in the current study. On the other hand, the low group exhibited higher levels of apoptotic and anti-apoptotic factors (except for αβ-crystallin) at 45 min post-mortem compared to the high WBS group, resulting in higher scores of tenderness attributes (p p p > 0.05) except for heat shock protein 27 (p < 0.05).

Keywords

• tenderness
• apoptosis
• caspases
• cytochrome c
• small heat shock proteins
• Hanwoo