Mingxin publishes her new Food Hydrocolloids paper on hydrolysis of legumin protein to improve surface properties

Mingxin Wang (PhD Student) has published her new work titled "Surface adsorption of legume proteins upon tryptic hydrolysis: Theoretical and experimental study" in Food Hydrocolloids. In this work, Mingxin demonstrates how enzymatic hydrolysis can affect the surface adsorption of 11S legumin-rich fraction (LR), extracted from pea protein, using a combination of theoretical (self-consistent field thoery calculations (SCF)) and experimental approaches. Surface adsorption analysis via quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D) revealed that the thickness and viscoelasticity of hydrolysates with moderate degree of hydrolysis (%DH) exhibited the highest mass adsorption and hydration levels, largely due to enhanced bulk diffusion rate of the smaller-sized hydrolysates and increased surface  affinity. Theoretically, the probability of occurrence (and volume fraction contribution) of each possible fragments under varying %DHs was mathematically calculated. Four most dominant fragments were then selected as the representative of the whole formed hydrolysates, and SCF was then applied to a mixture of these to gain insights into the surface adsorption behaviour of the fragmented proteins. Mathematically, it was seen that 5-7 %DH were beneficial for adsorption, demonstrating a higher number of fragments on the hydrophobic surface, in full agreement with the QCM-D results. The full text can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodhyd.2025.111830