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Purified cathepsin D was incubated with bovine skeletal muscle myofibrils under in virro conditions resembling those found in postmortem muscle. SDS‐PAGE analysis of myofibrils treated at pH 5.5 and 37°C and the sedimented, showed degradation of myosin heavy chains and titin. A small amount of actin, tropomyosin, troponins T and I, and myosin light chains also were degraded. The cathepsin D treated myofibrils were not fragmented to any greater extend than untreated myofibrils. Raising the pH and/or lowering the temperature greatly reduced the effectiveness of cathepsin D suggesting that the enzyme does not play a principal role in the tenderization process occurring in muscle postmortem.
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Zeece et al. (1986) studied this question.
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