Slow freezing of carp muscle and inosinic acid formation.

Abstract

IT has been noticed that when fresh muscles are frozen at very low temperature, for example, by sudden immersion in liquid propane or in liquid nitrogen, there is no significant change found in the amounts of adenosine triphosphate or creatine phosphate1. We have observed2 the changes which take place in fresh muscle of carp during storage in an ice chest at − 8° C. Under these conditions, the material was frozen slowly and it was found that the amounts of adenosine triphosphate and creatine phosphate decrease very rapidly, and those of compounds such as inosine monophosphate increase greatly. In the present work, an attempt has been made to observe the formation of inosine monophosphate during the course of slow freezing of carp muscle.