Predicting protein quality of Mediterranean Buffalo meat by the determination of collagen content

Muscle protein quality is determined by its content of essential aminoacids, a value inversely related to connective tissue content. In fact, collagen, the major connective tissue protein, is almost completely devoided of Met, Tyr and Trp and its proportion in muscle protein may reach values up to about 24% in low-value meat cuts. Presently, there are several methods utilized to determine protein quality. However, the rat-based PER (Protein Efficiency Ratio) assay, which measures the efficiency of utilization of protein for growth as influenced by food intake, had been the most widely used procedure for determining protein quality. Since the PER test is both time consuming and costly, Lee et al. 1978 showed that the chemical determination of collagen content can be employed to provide a rapid, inexpensive and easily adaptable assay for the estimation of protein quality of meat. Therefore, the aim of this study was to predict protein quality of Mediterranean Buffalo meat by the chemical determination of collagen content.