Mimicking myofibrillar protein denaturation in frozen-thawed meat: Effect of pH at high ionic strength

This study aims at providing new insight on protein denaturation in freezing-thawing. Freezing-thawing minced pork reduced water-holding of myofibrils and increased surface hydrophobicity. One additional freezing-thawing cycle slow freezing rate caused appearance a 160 kDa myosin-4 fragment SDS-PAGE, further decreased Fresh was exposed to either high salt (2 M KCl) only or with lower pH mimic conditions freezing. Exposure hence did not reproduce myofibrillar changes combinations pHs hydrophobicity, suggesting occurred by comparable mechanism as We propose that exposure combined solute concentrations the unfrozen water frozen meat is primary cause frozen-thawed meat.