Evaluation of rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry (REIMS) relationships with biochemical markers of tenderness in beef Longissimus lumborum steaks.

The objective of this study was to evaluate rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry (REIMS) as a rapid method to measure biochemical markers of beef tenderness. Over a 3-year period, steak samples were collected from beef carcasses (Canada AA, n = 1505; Canada AAA, n = 1363) and aged 14 d. Metabolomic profiling of beef samples was performed using REIMS (N = 2853). A subset of samples (n = 600) was selected to evaluate sarcomere length, myofibril fragmentation index (MFI), desmin degradation, troponin-T degradation, and collagen content. A stepwise regression model was constructed to examine the relationships between sarcomere length, MFI, intact and degraded desmin, intact and degraded troponin-T, total, soluble, and insoluble collagen, and spectra generated from REIMS. Selected REIMS bins accounted for 64.4% of the variation in predicted sarcomere length (R2 = 0.644, P < 0.001), 31.6% in predicted MFI (R2 = 0.316, P < 0.001), 58.3% in predicted intact desmin (R2 = 0.583, P < 0.001), 54.2% in predicted degraded desmin (R2 = 0.542, P < 0.001), 12.8% in predicted intact troponin-T (R2 = 0.128, P < 0.001), 8.4% in predicted degraded troponin-T (R2 = 0.084, P < 0.001), 23.7% in predicted total collagen (R2 = 0.237, P < 0.001), 25.2% in predicted soluble collagen (R2 = 0.252, P < 0.001), and 23.5% in predicted insoluble collagen (R2 = 0.235, P < 0.001). These results support the conclusion that REIMS metabolomic profiling is responsive to key biochemical features known to influence beef tenderness.