Abstract
Raman confocal microscopy is an increasingly useful technique when applied to food samples; it has the unique ability to interrogate the chemical structure, aligned with the same confocality capability that is available when using standard confocal microscopy. In this research, we investigated the potential of Raman confocal microscopy to investigate the components in a model cheese system. We showed an ability to distinguish whey protein particles within the casein protein matrix using several different image analysis approaches. The results illustrate the potential of Raman confocal microscopy and imaging to understand the chemical and microstructural features of cheese systems via the analysis of the distribution of the protein types in complex dairy matrices.
Highlights
The potential to apply analytical spectroscopic methods to analyse the microstructure of food systems has been a relatively recent development, largely because of the increasing capability and availability of suitable imaging technologies
Representative spectra for the whey protein and casein matrices were gathered by averaging regions of interest (ROIs) from within the two different protein matrices from the cheese image (Figure 4A)
We suggest that Raman shifts in the amide III region indicate similar relative differences of random coil and β-sheet structures between the casein and whey protein components within the cheese system.[12,13]
Summary
The potential to apply analytical spectroscopic methods to analyse the microstructure of food systems has been a relatively recent development, largely because of the increasing capability and availability of suitable imaging technologies. Developments in instrumentation and spectral and spatial resolution and increased signal-to-noise technologies allow detailed chemical and structural information to be gathered at a microscale in food systems.[1]. The development of Raman imaging using confocal microscope systems allows research into the chemical and corresponding microstructure of various components in a food system without some of the many artefacts introduced with other methods.[2].
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