Improving functional merit of commercially available pea protein isolate by employing a combination of physical, chemical, and enzymatic modification

Abstract

Pea protein-based diets have garnered global attention as a viable alternative to meat or primary protein sources. Nevertheless, the utilization of pea protein is hindered by issues such as solubility, and emulsifying properties. This research presents a combined set of techniques employed to commercially available Pea Protein Isolate (PPI) to effectively address major setbacks associated with the usage of pea protein in diverse industrial sectors, especially meat. The set integrates pH at 10.0, sonication at three different magnitudes (1,2 and 4 W/mL), heat at 60 °C, and enzyme hydrolysis through Flavourzyme at three different enzyme-to-substrate ratios (0.25%, 0.5%, and 1.0%). Among the twelve treatments, PPI11, PPI12, and PPI13 showed promising outcomes for artificial meat. The treatments exhibited favorable solubility, gelling, emulsifying, and foaming properties while containing the optimum and desirable protein size after undergoing partial hydrolysis comprehended in the gel electrophoresis results. Solubility (for PPI11, PPI12, PPI13) had seen significant (p < 0.05) improvement from 31.03% ± 2.11% (Control) to 64.43% ± 2.09%, 66.23% ± 2.11%, and 69.87% ± 1.57%, accompanied by changes in protein morphology in scanning electron microscopy. Furthermore, treated PPIs were applied to stabilize sunflower oil-in-water emulsion, showing a significant escalation in emulsion capacity (38.46%, 39.42% and 66.61% increase for PPI11, PPI12, PPI13), foaming capacity (46.88%, 51.20%, and 69.60% increase for PPI11, PPI12, PPI13), and foaming stability (30 min) (23.97%, 28.70%, and 30.22% increase for PPI11, PPI12, PPI13). Gelling properties were decisive in this study (2.512 ± 0.1 N, 2.604 ± 0.1 N, and 2.168 ± 0.3 N, for PPI11, PPI12, and PPI13), predominantly in plant-based meat analog perspective. So the mechanism proposed through this research will enable pea protein treated with this set of operations, combining physical, chemical and enzymatic treatments, to further its journey towards considerably improved meat analogs.