Abstract: During the conversion of muscle to meat, a series of biochemical changes are required for meat aging. Protein phosphorylation, a dynamic regulation mechanism of proteins, regulates almost every major biological process, and is one of the extensive post-translational modifications in the biological world. Therefore, studying the relationship between protein phosphorylation and postmortem muscle is helpful to the development of the meat industry. This article begins with an introduction to protein phosphorylation, discusses the technical progress in phosphorylated protein detection, summarizes the proteins that are phosphorylated in muscle after slaughter and the influential factors of protein phosphorylation, and reviews the effect of protein phosphorylation on meat quality attributes such as tenderness, color and water-holding capacity. The application of salts and amino acids in improving postmortem meat quality is reviewed and future research directions are also proposed.

Key words: protein phosphorylation; meat quality; meat color; water-holding capacity; salts; amino acids