Project description:Snacking has been traditionally associated with consumption of carbohydrates- and fats-rich foods. Nevertheless, new dietary trends have modified the social perception and outcomes of this dietary habit promoting consumption of protein-rich foods. This study investigates the impact of food processing on the proteome of one of the most widely consumed meat snacks, beef jerky. We have performed discovery-driven proteome-wide analyses, which encountered a significantly elevated presence of reactive prooxidant post-translational modifications in jerky compared to unprocessed meat.
Project description:To find a promoter upregulated in the presence of rotten meat, we exposed B. subtilis 168 to the volatiles of rotten meat (mixed beef/pork) and performed a microarray comparing it to B. subtilis which was not exposed to the meat. The results where used to build iGEM Groningen 2012s Food Warden, a spoiled meat detector. Find more information at: 2012.igem.org/Team:Groningen
Project description:To find a promoter upregulated in the presence of rotten meat, we exposed B. subtilis 168 to the volatiles of rotten meat (mixed beef/pork) and performed a microarray comparing it to B. subtilis which was not exposed to the meat. The results where used to build iGEM Groningen 2012s Food Warden, a spoiled meat detector. Find more information at: 2012.igem.org/Team:Groningen One condition design; including dye swap, two technical replicates and two experimental replicates
Project description:Beef quality is the first deciding factor for consumers to consider before purchasing. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of suspension and aging time on beef quality. We compared the differences in pH, drip loss, cooking loss, color, shear force, myofibril fragmentation index (MFI) and electron microscope of three muscle tissues between Achilles tendon (AT) and neck-arm restraint (NR) suspensions during seven aging periods (day 0, 1, 2, 3, 7, 14 and 21) after slaughter using the carcasses of six Xinjiang brown cattle. We found that NR suspension could significantly increase water loss rate and MFI, as well as reduce shear force compared to AT suspension. The muscle fiber structure with NR suspension was more severely damaged. The proteomics of longissimus dorsi were checked for the post-mortem day 1, 7 and 14. We detected 50, 26, and 29 differential expressed proteins (DEPs) between NR and AT suspension at post-mortem day 1, 7 and 14, respectively. These proteins were involved in metabolic and muscle structure associated pathways, and contributed to a comprehensive understanding of suspension-dependent meat quality regulation by proteins in beef cattle. To conclude, NR suspension can accelerate the aging time of beef carcasses, which will reduce the cost of carcass suspension and bring more benefits in beef industry.
Project description:The objective of this study was to characterize the major proteomes and metabolites present in beef exudate and determine their relationship with the color and oxidative quality of beef muscles. Beef loin (longissimus lumborum; LD) and tenderloin (psoas major; PM) muscles were cut into sections, individually vacuum-packaged, and aged for 9, 16 and 23 days. Following aging, the meat exudates were collected and analyzed for both proteomics and metabolomics profiles. Both analyses demonstrated that distinct proteins and metabolites clustered by different muscle types and aging times were detected from meat exudate, however, metabolomics profiling presented a greater capability in identifying different aging periods. The proteome profile of PM exudate exhibited a greater concentration of oxidative metabolism enzymes, while the LD exudate contained a higher abundance of glycolytic metabolism enzymes. Greater lipid, nucleotide, carnitine and glucoside metabolites were observed in LD and 23d exudates, further explaining potential postmortem energy metabolism. HSP70 and laminin proteins, together with glucosides metabolites identified in the exudates were correlated (P<0.1 and |r|>0.5) to muscle oxidative stability. The results indicated that meat exudate could be a viable analytical matrix to further understand postmortem metabolism and potentially generate unique biomarker combinations to predict meat quality attributes.
Project description:A new generation of plant-based meat alternatives—formulated to mimic the taste and nutritional composition of red meat—have attracted considerable consumer interest, research attention, and media coverage. This has raised questions of whether plant-based meat alternatives represent proper nutritional replacements to animal meat. Given that food sources have considerable complexity and contain a wide variety of nutrients (e.g., phenols, anti-oxidants, peptides, amino acids, fatty acids, and other carboxylic acids), the majority of which do not appear on nutrition labels, it is important to explore expanded nutrient profiles when determining whether beef and plant-based meat alternatives are nutritionally interchangeable. Important nutritional differences may exist between beef and novel plant-based alternatives, given their materials origin; however, this has not been thoroughly assessed. Given the scientific and commercial interest in plant-based meat alternatives, the goal of our study was to use untargeted metabolomics to provide an in-depth comparison of the metabolite profiles of grass-fed ground beef and a popular plant-based meat alternative.