Dry-cured ham tissue characterization by fast field cycling NMR relaxometry and quantitative magnetization transfer

Fast field cycling (FFC) and quantitative magnetization transfer (qMT) NMR methods are two powerful tools in NMR analysis of biological tissues. The qMT method is well established in biomedical NMR applications, while the FFC method is often used in investigations of molecular dynamics on which longitudinal NMR relaxation times of the investigated material critically depend. Despite their proven analytical potential, these two methods were rarely used in NMR studies of food, especially when combined together. In our study, we demonstrate the feasibility of a combined FFC/qMT-NMR approach for the fast and nondestructive characterization of dry-curing ham tissues differing by protein content. The characterization is based on quantifying the pure quadrupolar peak area (area under the quadrupolar contribution of dispersion curve obtained by FFC-NMR) and the restricted magnetization pool size (obtained by qMT-NMR). Both quantities correlate well with concentration of partially immobilized, nitrogen-containing and proton magnetization exchanging muscle proteins. Therefore, these two quantities could serve as potential markers for dry-curing process monitoring. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.