Abstract
To investigate the relationship between meat tenderness and content of the CASF (Ca2+-activated sarcoplasmic factor), the CASF was prepared from broiler and culled chicken pectoralis muscles immediately after death.
The yield of the crude CASF prepared from broiler was lower than that from culled chicken, while the specific activity of the former was higher than that of the latter. The crude CASF was fractionated into three fractions (A, B and C) by gel filtration on Sepharose 6B, and the fraction B was a main fraction of the CASF activity. The ratio of the fraction B to other fractions was higher for the crude CASF prepared from broiler than that from culled chicken.
It seems to be difficult to explain the difference in the tenderness between broiler and culled chicken meats only from the standpoint of the CASF activity.
