Proteomic analysis of pork meat in the production of cooked ham

The industrial production of cooked ham from pork meat involves, as initial steps, the injection of brine and a prolonged meat massage. These processes strongly affect the quality of the final product because they determine the breakage of muscle cells and the release of their protein content. The produced dense exudates act as a glue in the final cooked ham. In order to exploit modern tools to direct the technological process, still mainly based on empirical observations and traditional recipes, we have carried out a comprehensive proteomic analysis of the exudates as a function of brine concentration, temperature, and length of meat massage. Each condition was found to generate specific protein patterns. Peptide mass fingerprinting analysis was applied allowing the identification of proteins, whose presence and/or quantity can be defined as biomarkers of meat processing, and, potentially, of final product quality.