Intramuscular connective tissue (IMCT) forms a series of continuous networks integrating muscle fibers and fascicles into a whole organ. The contributions of IMCT to cooked meat toughness have long been recognized. This review concentrates on (a) the potential to manipulate IMCT in the growing animal, (b) postmortem effects on structure and properties of IMCT, and (c) developments in techniques to quantify IMCT in meat. A new hypothesis can explain why IMCT is enzymatically degraded in postmortem aging; however, after cooking, no differences are seen in the IMCT contribution to toughness. This hypothesis proposes that heat-insoluble collagen occurs in a weak pool and a strong pool, where the weak pool is most easily degraded by both proteolysis and heat. Far from being a constant background feature, the IMCT contribution to cooked meat toughness can be varied and deserves fresh research on how to achieve this.

中文翻译：

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肌肉内结缔组织在肉韧性中作用的新进展。

肌内结缔组织（IMCT）形成一系列连续网络，将肌肉纤维和束聚集到整个器官中。长期以来，人们已经认识到IMCT对熟肉韧性的贡献。这篇综述集中在（a）在生长中的动物中操作IMCT的潜力，（b）对IMCT的结构和性质的事后影响以及（c）定量肉中IMCT的技术发展。一个新的假设可以解释为什么IMCT在死后老化过程中会被酶降解。但是，烹饪后，IMCT对韧性的贡献没有差异。该假设提出热不溶性胶原蛋白存在于弱库和强库中，其中弱库最容易通过蛋白水解和热降解。远非恒定的背景功能，