Continuous cyclic wet heating glycation to prepare myofibrillar protein-glucose conjugates: A study on the structures, solubility and emulsifying properties

Myofibrillar protein (MP) is often modified by various strategies to obtain better functional properties, which are crucial to the quality of meat products. This study prepared MP-glucose conjugates with high degrees of grafting (DG) by continuous cyclic wet heating glycation, and explored the changes in the structural and functional properties. The determination of DG, amino acid contents and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) confirmed the occurrence of glycation. The conjugates lost alpha-helix structures, and their intrinsic fluorescence intensity decreased while their surface hydrophobicity increased, which reflected the conformational unfolding and stretching behaviour of the molecules. Glycation resulted in a smaller particle size and lower zeta-potential, delaying molecular cross-linking during heating, thereby significantly reducing the apparent viscosity of the solutions and improving the solubility and emulsifying properties of MP. The results can provide new ideas and approaches for understanding glycation, and enrich the theoretical basis of the structure-function relationship of MP.