STREAMLINING THE DETERMINATION OF MYOFIBRILLAR FRAGMENTATION INDEX

摘要

It has recently been reported by Hopkins et al. (2004) that a Ystral shaft-type homogeniser could be used for the determination of myofibrillar fragmentation index (MFI) as an alternative to an Omni blade-type homogeniser. This followed an earlier study (Hopkins et al. 2000) that developed a standard method based on a blade homogeniser operated at 15,000 rpm at 2 passes of 30 seconds duration. It was shown by Hopkins et al. (2004) that homogenising at 11,000 rpm for two 30-second bursts with the Ystral produced a similar variance to the standard method using the Omni. A shafttype homogeniser is advantageous for several reasons: 1) it can be used for other applications, 2) the capital cost is lower, and 3) it reduces the time between successive homogenisations. It was contended that the repeatability between duplicates using the Ystral homogeniser could be improved by homogenising samples in a falcon tube using a 10 mm shaft, instead of in a beaker using an 18 mm shaft as reported by Hopkins et al.(2004). A study was conducted to test this contention.