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Establishment of a stable complex formed from whey protein isolate and chitosan and its stability under environmental stresses

  • Weili Xu
    ,
  • Yinzhao Tang
    ,
  • Yang Yang
    ,
  • Guijie Wang
    ,
  • Shaobo Zhou
Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Open access

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the stability of a complex formed with whey protein isolate (WPI) and chitosan under environmental stress. The optical density, particle size, zeta potential, chemical characteristics, electrostatic interactions, and surface morphology were evaluated for the stable complexes; the optimum conditions for the generation of the stable complex were 0.2% (wt/wt) whey protein with 0.05% (wt/wt) chitosan at pH 5.7. Under these conditions, the complex particle size was 217.8 ± 11.3 nm and the zeta potential was 16.7 ± 0.92 mV. The complex was formed through electrostatic interactions between the amine groups of chitosan (-NH3+) and carboxyl groups of whey protein (-COO−), and contained a porous network interspaced by heterogeneously sized vacuoles. The complex displayed stable physiochemical characteristics under environmental stresses including NaCl (0–75 mM) or sugar (0–5%) at ambient temperature and upon heating for 15 min at 25–65 °C, up to 65 °C for 30 min. Moreover, the complex could be stably stored for 30 d at 4 °C and for 20 d at 25 °C. The present results provide theoretical insights into the industrial production of chitosan-protein complexes and for microencapsulation of sensitive food or medicinal ingredients to increase their intestinal absorption.

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Original language

English

Pages from-to (Number of pages)

Pages 2823-2833

Journal (Volume, Issue Number)

International Journal of Biological Macromolecules (Volume 165)

Publication milestones

  • Accepted/In press - 15/10/2020
  • Published - 22/10/2020

Publication status

Published - 22/10/2020

ISSN

0141-8130

External Publication IDs

  • handle.net: 10547/624613
  • Scopus: 85094190111

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