Abstract
Fish and seafood products are highly susceptible to post-mortem spoilage due to autolytic reactions at start, then microbiological activity and eventually oxidative reactions. Chemical and microbiological parameters are usually used to assess quality and make decisions for protecting public health, but they lack precision in defining which spoilage pathway is occurring at each moment. The objective of this work was to assess the effects of spoilage reactions on nitrogen and carbon stable isotopes in the grooved carpet shell clam, Ruditapes decussatus, and compare them to biochemical indicators of seafood deterioration, in order to better understand the relations between the different spoilage pathways during commercial storage conditions. Clams were kept in a refrigerator at 5 °C, to simulate normal commercial storage conditions, and sampled in the beginning of the experiment, and after eight, ten and twelve days. Moisture, condition index, percentage edibility, total volatile basic nitrogen (TVB-N), pH, nitrogen and carbon percentages and stable isotopes were determined for each sampling moment. Stable isotope analyses were performed using a Costech Elemental Analyzer (ECS 4010) coupled to a Thermo Finnigan Delta V Advantage. Stable isotopes analysis, especially for nitrogen, proved to be a good tool for the study of clam deterioration. Nitrogen stable isotopes results showed a relation with other spoilage indicators, such as pH and TVB-N, and allowed identifying spoilage specific pathways, such as amino acids decarboxylation and production of volatile nitrogen compounds.
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Acknowledgements
The research leading to these results was primarily funded by the project NITROLINKS – NITROgen loading into the Ria Formosa through Coastal Groundwater Discharge (CGD) – Pathways, turnover and LINKS between land and sea in the Coastal Zone (PTDC/MAR/70247/2006) funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). This work was also supported by the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT) through the grant UID/MAR/00350/2013 attributed to CIMA of the University of Algarve, and through project UID/Multi/04326/2013 attributed to CCMAR. We would also like to thank Dr. Carlos Rocha for his contribution to the stable isotopes analysis and for his insights regarding the discussion of the results.
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Aníbal, J., Veiga-Pires, C., Esteves, E. (2018). Effects of Spoilage on Nitrogen and Carbon Stable Isotopes Signatures of the Clam Ruditapes decussatus . In: Mortal, A., et al. INCREaSE . INCREaSE 2017. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70272-8_20
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70272-8_20
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