Mechanism and Control of Quality Changes in Aquatic Products

A special issue of Foods (ISSN 2304-8158). This special issue belongs to the section "Foods of Marine Origin".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2025 | Viewed by 359

Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Food Science and Technology, Dalian Polytechnic University, Dalian 116034, China
Interests: aquatic product; seafood; marine products; endogenous enzymes and inhibitors; by-product usage; storage; quality change; quality control
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Food Science and Technology, Dalian Polytechnic University, Dalian, China
Interests: aquatic product; seafood; marine products; processing; prepared seafood; texture property and restructure; 3D printing; storage; quality change; quality control

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Aquatic products are highly susceptible to deterioration and spoilage because of their special growth environment and nutritional composition. The topic of aquatic product wastage has always received widespread attention. However, compared to other agricultural products, due to heterogeneity in production, supply, and other aspects, research on aquatic product loss is lagging behind meat, dairy, cereal, and other food loss research. The quality of aquatic products, including raw materials, semi-finished products, and final products, continually changes and deteriorate during harvest, storage, transportation, processing, post-processing storage, logistics sales, and consumption. These changes, on one hand, are closely related to intrinsic biological and chemical factors, mainly including the endogenous enzyme system, free radical transmission and generation, the type and number of carried microorganisms, and the specificity of nutritional components. On the other hand, the comprehensive action of the above factors is mainly affected by the specific external environmental conditions that the aquatic products are located in. The continuous exploration of in-depth understanding of the intrinsic factors and their mechanisms is prerequisite for effective quality control of aquatic raw materials and products, and this could also effectively guide the development of quality control science and technology.

Dr. Liming Sun
Prof. Dr. Xiuping Dong
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • aquatic raw material
  • aquatic product
  • processing, logistics, and storage
  • quality change mechanism
  • quality control technique
  • endogenous enzymes and inhibitors
  • spoilage microbe

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (1 paper)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

20 pages, 6781 KiB  
Article
A Novel Cystatin Gene from Sea Cucumber (Apostichopus japonicus): Characterization and Comparative Expression with Cathepsin L During Early Stage of Hypoxic Exposure-Induced Autolysis
by Siyu Yao, Rui Zhang, Siyuan Ma, Ting Zhao, Qinhao Liu, Lin Zhu, Chang Liu, Liming Sun and Ming Du
Foods 2025, 14(8), 1404; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods14081404 - 18 Apr 2025
Viewed by 257
Abstract
Autolysis in sea cucumber has long been a threat to raw material storage and product processing. The involvement of endogenous cysteine protease in sea cucumber autolysis has been proved extendedly. However, as an essential part of the mechanism of autolysis, the role of [...] Read more.
Autolysis in sea cucumber has long been a threat to raw material storage and product processing. The involvement of endogenous cysteine protease in sea cucumber autolysis has been proved extendedly. However, as an essential part of the mechanism of autolysis, the role of its endogenous inhibitor has seldom been reported. To investigate the role of cysteine protease inhibitors in the early stage of hypoxic exposure-induced autolysis, a novel cystatin gene (SjCyt) belonging to the subfamily of cystatin C was cloned from Apostichopus japonicus by homology cloning and rapid amplification of cDNA ends. The affinity of SjCyt to cysteine protease (cathepsin L and cathepsin B) was investigated by molecular dynamics simulations. Pertinent metrics, including the root mean square deviation, radius of gyration, Gibbs free energy, binding free energy, and bond-forming frequency, showed that the conformation of SjCyt–SjCL was more stable and confirmed a stronger interaction of SjCyt with cathepsin L than with cathepsin B. Thus, cathepsin L (SjCL) was selected to further study its co-expression with SjCyt over a period of 9 h at an early stage of hypoxic exposure. Quantitative RT-qPCR revealed a ubiquitous transcriptional profile of SjCyt and SjCL in all the tested tissues, with the highest abundance in the dorsal epidermis, tube feet, and coelomocytes. Temporal transcription of them showed an overall up-regulated co-expression in the dorsal epidermis and tube feet. However, up-regulated SjCyt and down-regulated SjCL were observed at the protein level. Further immunofluorescence double labeling also found increased staining of SjCyt and SjCyt–SjCL complexes and decreased SjCL. Additionally, recombinant SjCyt was prepared and demonstrated an evident autolysis-inhibiting effect. The results of this study indicated that the anti-autolytic regulation of SjCyt functions at the very early stage of hypoxic exposure, exerting effects at both the transcriptional and translational levels. The above finding offers new insights into the mechanisms of sea cucumber autolysis. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mechanism and Control of Quality Changes in Aquatic Products)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop