Comparison of Meat Quality and Muscle Fiber Characteristics between Porcine Skeletal Muscles with Different Architectures

Abstract

This study aimed to compare the similarities, physicochemical properties, and muscle fiber characteristics of porcine skeletal muscles. Fourteen types of muscles were collected from nine pig carcasses at 24 h post-mortem and classified by muscle architecture into two main groups, namely parallel and pennate. The muscles were further differentiated into three subtypes per group. These included fan-shaped, fusiform, and strap for the parallel group, and unipennate, bipennate, and multipennate for the pennate group. Parallel-fibered muscles, which were composed of larger I, IIA, IIX, and IIXB fibers and a lower density of IIA fibers, showed higher redness and yellowness values than pennate-fibered muscles (p<0.05). However, the relative fiber area was not significantly different between the parallel and pennate groups (p>0.05). In the subtypes of parallel architecture, the strap group showed lower moisture content and higher redness values than the other subtypes and had considerably higher amounts of oxidative fibers (I and IIA; 72.3%) than the fan-shaped and fusiform groups (p<0.05). In the pennate group, unipennate showed comparatively lower moisture content and higher lightness than other pennate subtypes and was composed of smaller I, IIA, and IIX fibers than the bipennate and multipennate groups (p<0.05). Finally, a different trend of muscle clustering by hierarchical cluster analysis was found between physicochemical properties and muscle fiber characteristics. These results suggest that the physicochemical properties and muscle fiber characteristics of porcine skeletal muscles are not significantly dependent on morphological properties but are rather related to the intrinsic properties of the individual muscles.

Comparative review of muscle fiber characteristics between porcine skeletal muscles

“…Additionally, muscle is a complex tissue composed of several muscle fiber types with different metabolic and contractile characteristics. Thus, its physiological and kinetic characteristics are determined by the architecture and characteristics (such as size, composition, and density) of its constituent muscle fibers [ 3 , 13 - 15 ]. Previous studies have provided substantial evidence that the physicochemical properties of livestock muscles differ between muscles (or meat cuts) depending on the muscle fiber characteristics observed when the muscles are converted into meat following slaughter [ 4 , 7 ].…”

“…However, IS, GR, and M. infrahyoid (IN) tend to have muscle fiber types with similar sizes and show muscle fiber size characteristics that are different from those of other muscles. This is because different muscle fiber sizes, depending on the muscle type, have different physiological characteristics, such as the ability to control movement at the location where each muscle is attached [ 3 , 39 ].…”

“…Muscle food (meat), derived from skeletal muscles, which constitute the body of livestock, is an example of nutritionally excellent food. Different meat types not only differ in terms of nutritional characteristics [ 1 , 2 ] but also in terms of sensory and quality properties [ 3 - 5 ]. Reportedly, these nutritional characteristics as well as sensory and quality properties are very closely related to the meat constituents, histochemical characteristics, and muscle cell (fiber) characteristics [ 4 , 6 , 7 ].…”

“…Different meat types have considerably different nutritional and physicochemical properties depending on the species, breed, and muscle type. Further, the contribution of muscle fiber characteristics to these differences is relatively high [ 3 , 4 ]. Previous studies have also provided substantial evidence that meat quality changes during aging or refrigeration and quality deterioration accompanying freeze–thaw processes are associated with the composition of the muscle fibers constituting meat [ 8 - 10 ].…”

“…However, given that the bodies of livestock comprise several muscle types, it is challenging to identify and compare the muscle fiber characteristics of the different muscle types simultaneously. For this reason, most studies conducted in recent decades have been focused on the muscle fiber characteristics of specific muscles [ 3 , 4 , 7 , 12 ].…”