Role of calpain system in post-mortem tenderization of meat and its influence on quality-A review

Tenderness is considered to be a single most important factor considerably affecting consumer's dissatisfaction by reducing eating quality. Meat tenderization process is a complex mechanism could be affected by several pathways including pre-and post-slaughter handling and processing alone or both. Toughness of meat could be due to development of crosslinkages of collagen connective tissue, intramuscular fat deposition, muscle fibre or sarcomere length etc. But ultimate tenderness is determined by the extent of proteolysis of key target myofibrillar proteins by the inherent enzymatic activity. So, main objective of this review is to provide ample information relating to role calpain proteolytic system in post-mortem proteolysis of muscle tissues and how it is affecting the meat quality.