Purification of Egg White Lysozyme Determines the Downstream Fibrillation of Protein and Co-assembly with Phytochemicals to Form Edible Hydrogels Regulating the Lipid Metabolism.

Abstract

Although the synthetic chemistry or synthetic biological systems have already shown the power of biomaterials engineering, natural bioresource matter is still a valuable library of raw ingredients for the production of biomaterials, in particular, the edible ones. However, the influence of upstream isolation and purification of the raw materials on their performance in the downstream processing procedures is still unexplored, which is essential for the engineering of biomaterials. Based on the comparison of conventional techniques, heating-induced precipitation combined with resin-blending ion exchange was developed as a simple and cheap method for the utilization of egg whites to produce the lysozyme that is found to be exclusively feasible for fibrillation. Even with similar purities, only the lysozyme prepared by this method could be utilized to form ordered linear aggregate fibrils. Fibrillation was recently pursued as a new approach to utilize bioresource mass for high-tech end-products. Phytochemicals, totally replacing salts, induced the lysozyme fibrils to form hydrogels spontaneously, which was further demonstrated in an in vivo study to prevent obesity induced by a high-fat diet (HFD) by reducing lipid absorption and lipogenesis, promoting energy expenditure, and inhibiting inflammation. The agri-food bioresource was successfully employed as a proof of concept in edible biomedical materials for the regulation of lipid metabolism.