Changes in protein abundance between tender and tough meat from bovine longissimus thoracis muscle assessed by isobaric Tag for Relative and Absolute Quantitation (iTRAQ) and 2-dimensional gel electrophoresis analysis.

The aim of this study was to find potential biomarkers for meat tenderness in bovine Longissimus thoracis muscle and to compare results from isobaric Tag for Relative and Absolute Quantitation (iTRAQ) and 2-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) analysis. The experiment included 4 tender and 4 tough samples, based on shear force measurements at 7 d postmortem, from young Norwegian red (NRF) bulls, taken at 1 h postmortem. A number of the proteins which have previously been related to tenderness were found to change in abundance between tender and tough samples, both in iTRAQ (P < 0.1) and 2-DE analysis (P < 0.05). Furthermore, 3 proteins that have not previously been related to tenderness were found to change significantly in abundance between tender and tough meat samples in the present study. These include proteins related to control of flux through the tricarboxylate cycle [2-oxoglutarate dehydrogenase complex component E2 (OGDC-E2)], apoptosis (galectin-1) and regulatory role in the release of Ca(2+) from intracellular stores (annexin A6). Even though the overlap in significantly changing proteins was relatively low between iTRAQ and 2-DE analysis, certain proteins predicted to have the same function were found in both analyses and showed similar changes between the groups, such as structural proteins and proteins related to apoptosis and energy metabolism.