Sahar AwdeNathalie Marty-GassetKriengkrai PrahkarnkaeoHervé RémignonINRA Institut National de La Recherche AgronomiqueUniversite de ToulouseMahidol University2018-11-092018-11-092014-04-09Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Vol.62, No.14 (2014), 3262-326815205118002185612-s2.0-84898004387https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/123456789/33025We investigated liver protease activities to better understand the mechanisms responsible for losses during the cooking of Mule ducks' fatty livers. Fatty livers of similar masses (520 g) were randomly selected among a large flock of overfed male Mule ducks and divided into two groups on the basis of their cooking loss rate, L+ (high cooking losses, 36%) and L- (low cooking losses, 21%). In addition to dry matter and total lipid contents, main hepatic protease (matrix metalloproteinase 2, cathepsins, and calpains) activities were measured by zymography. The results show that L+ samples present higher total relative proteolytic activity (6.15 ± 1.07 vs 4.46 ± 0.52 for L+ and L- samples, respectively) and total lipid content (61.0 ± 3.03% vs 53.7 ± 3.22% for L+ and L- samples, respectively) than L- samples. The results imply that proteases could be involved in the fragilization of the hepatocyte structure, resulting thus in higher cooking losses in L+ samples. © 2014 American Chemical Society.Mahidol UniversityAgricultural and Biological SciencesChemistryArticleSCOPUS10.1021/jf4051057