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There has been increasing use of High pressure processing (HPP) in the fishery industry since this technology facilitates shellfish shucking. Nevertheless, there is limited information about the effect of HPP on protein functional properties of some shellfish. In the case of blue crab meat it is important to study the effect of HPP on protein functional properties such as gelling capacity in order to optimize processing parameters for the preparation of high-quality restructured products. This paper reports the development of a HPP process in blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) meat (100, 300 and 600 MPa/ 5 min 40°C/30 min + 90°C/ 20 min) prior to thermal gelling for the preparation of crab meat gels. HPP treatment resulted in crab meat gels with a lighter and reddish colour as compared to the control. HPP at 600 MPa induced the formation of high molecular aggregates from the denaturationaggregation of myosin heavy chain. Pressurization at 100 MPa promoted the shift of αhelix structures to βsheet and βturn as compared with the other pressure levels. TPA values were higher in gels made at 100 MPa than at 300 or 600 MPa. Low pressure levels, then, increased the heatinduced gelling capacity of crab meat, improving the texture through modification of its protein structure. The use of HPP on blue crab for hand-picking of the meat followed by heat-induced gelling of the pressurized meat resulted in high-quality gels. So, these gels could provide a base for new seafood analogues although studies on protein digestibility are required to properly understand the effect of HPP on crab meat and crab meat gels.

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a 90 ºC. Los resultados obtenidos indicaron que es factible obtener productos reestructurados a partir de carne de jaiba previamente cocida, si se emplea un solo ciclo de lavado y se adiciona la enzima TGasa microbiana.PALABRAS CLAVE: carne de jaiba, transglutaminasa microbiana, tratamiento de lavado, gelificación. ABSTRACTCooked crabmeat has been reported to produce weak gels after a three-cycle washing process. Adding microbial transglutaminase (MTGase) can improve the mechanical properties in these gels. The objective of this work was to determine if a single washing treatment combined with adding of MTGase could improve the mechanical properties of crabmeat gels. Blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus) were obtained from Laguna Madre Tamaulipas, México and cooked at 120 °C for 20 min to separate the cooked meat from the shell. Cooked meat was homogenized in a cutter with 0 (control), 0.5 % and 1 % MTGase and stuffed in stainless steel tubes and incubated at 40 °C for 30 min before cooking at 90 °C for 15 min. Gels were also obtained by cooking directly at 90 °C for 15 min without previous incubation. Changes on the texture profile analysis were evaluated. The single washing step was enough to improve the mechanical properties of the crabmeat gels and MTGase improved such properties especially when gels were incubated to 40 ºC previous to their cooking at 90 ºC. The results obtained indicate that it is feasible to produce restructured products from cooked crabmeat by reducing the number of washing cycles if MTGase is added.