College of Food Science and Technology, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming 650201, China.
Institute of Medicinal Plants, Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan 650201, China.
Food Chem. 2025 Jan 15;463(Pt 2):141168. doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2024.141168. Epub 2024 Sep 11.
Blending two or more materials to create better high-moisture meat analogues has been actively studied in the food science and technology field. Walnut protein is a high-quality plant-based protein resource, yet its full potential remains underexploited. Thus, this study focused on exploring the quality characteristics and fibrous structure formation mechanism of walnut protein (WP) and wheat gluten (WG) meat analogues during high-moisture extrusion cooking process. Results showed that the optimized WP and WG-blended high-moisture meat analogues exhibited a more pronounced anisotropic and oriented fibrous structure. The blending of WP and WG can protect the molecular chains from the thermal transition, and promote the aggregation of protein molecules mainly by enhancing the interaction between hydrophobic interactions and hydrogen bonds, increasing the apparent viscosity and forming protein subunits with larger molecular weights (>100 kDa) to stabilize the newly formed conformation. Additionally, the content of α-helix was the highest among the secondary structures. This study provides a theoretical basis for the application of WG and WP to produce HMMAs with rich fibrous structures.
将两种或多种材料混合以创造更好的高水分肉类仿制品，这在食品科学和技术领域已经得到了积极的研究。核桃蛋白是一种高质量的植物性蛋白质资源，但它的潜力尚未得到充分开发。因此，本研究专注于探索在高水分挤压烹饪过程中，核桃蛋白（WP）和小麦面筋（WG）肉类仿制品的质量特性和纤维结构形成机制。结果表明，优化的 WP 和 WG 混合高水分肉类仿制品表现出更明显的各向异性和定向纤维结构。WP 和 WG 的混合可以保护分子链免受热转变的影响，并通过增强疏水相互作用和氢键之间的相互作用、增加表观粘度和形成具有较大分子量（>100 kDa）的蛋白质亚基来促进蛋白质分子的聚集，从而稳定新形成的构象。此外，二级结构中α-螺旋的含量最高。这项研究为 WG 和 WP 在生产具有丰富纤维结构的 HMMAs 中的应用提供了理论基础。
