Upcycling tea residue into plant-based emulsifiers via enzymatic polysaccharide degradation and protein structural modulation

IF 6.6 1区农林科学 Q1 FOOD SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

LWT - Food Science and Technology Pub Date : 2025-10-09 DOI:10.1016/j.lwt.2025.118600

Zexin Lin , Jie Zhou , Han Wei , Xiaoyan Lai , Yanyan Zhang , Chen Zhang

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Abstract

Tea residue, a tea processing by-product, yields alkaline-extracted proteins with limited emulsifying capacity due to strong interactions with polysaccharides such as pectin and cellulose. A polysaccharide-targeted enzymatic strategy was developed by systematically comparing carbohydrases, proteases, and transglutaminase (TG). Selected carbohydrases (Viscozyme® L, pectinase, cellulase) effectively disrupted protein–polysaccharide complexes, enhancing the emulsifying activity index (EAI) by 2.4-fold compared to untreated controls (P < 0.05), and significantly outperforming proteases and TG. Mechanistic analysis showed that polysaccharide degradation reduced ionic and hydrogen bonding (>90 %), exposed hydrophobic groups (220 % increase in free sulfhydryl), and promoted β-sheet formation (up to 56 %), facilitating dense interfacial film formation. Dialysis experiments revealed that removing small peptides and pectin fragments (<3 kDa) increased α-helix content (to 27 %) but impaired emulsification, while retention of oligosaccharides improved stability via viscosity and steric hindrance. This enzymatic approach offers a sustainable and structure-guided pathway to convert food processing waste into clean-label, plant-based emulsifiers, contributing to the functional valorization of agro-industrial by-products.

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通过酶解多糖和蛋白质结构调节将茶渣升级为植物性乳化剂

茶渣是茶叶加工的副产品，由于与果胶和纤维素等多糖的强烈相互作用，它产生的碱提取蛋白质的乳化能力有限。通过系统地比较糖酶、蛋白酶和谷氨酰胺转酶（TG），开发了一种多糖靶向酶策略。选定的糖酶（Viscozyme®L、果胶酶、纤维素酶）有效地破坏了蛋白-多糖复合物，与未处理的对照组相比，乳化活性指数（EAI）提高了2.4倍（P < 0.05），显著优于蛋白酶和TG。机理分析表明，多糖降解降低了离子和氢键（> 90%），暴露了疏水性基团（游离巯基增加220%），促进了β-片的形成（高达56%），促进了致密界面膜的形成。透析实验表明，去除小肽和果胶片段（< 3kda）可增加α-螺旋含量（27%），但会破坏乳化，而保留寡糖通过粘度和位阻提高稳定性。这种酶的方法提供了一种可持续的和结构导向的途径，将食品加工废物转化为清洁标签的植物性乳化剂，有助于农业工业副产品的功能增值。

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来源期刊

LWT - Food Science and Technology 工程技术-食品科技

CiteScore

11.80

自引率

6.70%

发文量

1724

审稿时长

65 days

期刊介绍： LWT - Food Science and Technology is an international journal that publishes innovative papers in the fields of food chemistry, biochemistry, microbiology, technology and nutrition. The work described should be innovative either in the approach or in the methods used. The significance of the results either for the science community or for the food industry must also be specified. Contributions written in English are welcomed in the form of review articles, short reviews, research papers, and research notes. Papers featuring animal trials and cell cultures are outside the scope of the journal and will not be considered for publication.