Enzymatic hydrolysis of defatted mackerel protein with low bitter taste

Abstract

Ultrasound-assisted solvent extraction was confirmed as a novel, effective method for separating lipid from mackerel protein, resulting in a degreasing rate (DR) of 95% and a nitrogen recovery (NR) of 88.6%. To obtain protein hydrolysates with high nitrogen recovery and low bitter taste, enzymatic hydrolysis was performed using eight commercially available proteases. It turned out that the optimum enzyme was the ‘Mixed enzymes for animal proteolysis’. An enzyme dosage of 4%, a temperature of 50°, and a hydrolysis time of 300 min were found to be the optimum conditions to obtain high NR (84.28%) and degree of hydrolysis (DH, 16.18%) by orthogonal experiments. Glutamic acid was the most abundant amino acid of MDP (defatted mackerel protein) and MDPH (defatted mackerel protein hydrolysates). Compared with the FAO/WHO reference protein, the essential amino acid chemical scores (CS) were greater than 1.0 (1.0–1.7) in MDPH, which is reflective of high nutritional value. This, coupled with the light color and slight fishy odor, indicates that MDPH would potentially have a wide range of applications such as nutritional additives, functional ingredients, and so on.