Glycolytic Potential and Meat Quality

The contents of residual glycogen and glucose (RG), glucose-6-phosphate (G6P) and lactate (LAT) in LT muscle were determined using the glycogen assay kits (E2GN-100) BioAssay Systems, the glucose-6-phosphate assay kits (EG6P-100) BioAssay Systems and the lactic acid assay kits (A019-2) from the Nanjing Jiancheng Bioengineering Institute, respectively. GP were calculated as the sum of: 2 × (RG + G6P) + Lactate (Monin and Sellier, 1985 (link)) and expressed as μmol of lactic acid equivalent per g of fresh muscle. In addition, pH values of LT muscle was measured twice on each sample at 45 min (pH_i) and 24 h (pH_u) after slaughter using a Delta 320 pH meter, and their mean values were calculated separately. The difference between pH_i and pH_u was taken as pH decline (pH_d). Drip loss was assayed using an EZ-Drip Loss method. Three color parameters L^*, a^* and b^* on the surface cuts of LT were objectively evaluated with a CM-2600d/2500d Minolta Chroma meter (Liu et al., 2015 (link)). The correlations between the GP related traits and the pH traits were evaluated using Pearson correlation analysis.