Fluorometric analysis of 2-thiobarbituric acid reactive substances in turkey

Three experiments were conducted to develop a sensitive and reliable fluorometric thiobarbituric acid (TEA) reactive substances (TEARS) method to determine lipid oxidation products in meat. The first study was conducted to find the optimum sample preparation conditions for meat in the fluorometric method. The second study was to compare the original and the modified methods by using meat and blood samples. The modified fluorometric method was compared with a conventional spectrophotometric method in a third study. Four different extraction solutions (2.5 M acetic acid, 0.5 M hydrochloric acid, 0.8 M perchloric acid, and 1.4 M trichloroacetic acid) and two ratios of extraction solution to TEA (20 mM) solutions (2:1 and 1:1) were examined in the first study. Hydrochloric acid was the optimum among the four extraction solutions tested, and the ratio of extraction solution to TEA solution at 1: 1 was the best for the fluorometric TEARS method in raw ground turkey. The modified fluorometric method had high recovery rates (91%, average), and the regression coefficient of the standard curve prepared with spikes was also high (r(2) = 0.99). The analysis of raw meat and plasma samples indicated that the modified fluorometric method had greater sensitivity than the original method. The pH of the reaction mixture played an important role in extraction TEARS from samples, and low pH conditions were preferable to high pH conditions. The amount of lipid oxidation products in raw turkey breast meat indicated that the fluorometric method had much greater sensitivity than the spectrophotometric method. The results from the three studies showed that the modified fluorometric TEARS method was useful for the samples with low lipid oxidation products, such as fresh raw meat. The sensitivity of the modified fluorometric method also facilitates the determination of oxidation products in small quantities of samples.