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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Athens, Georgia » U.S. National Poultry Research Center » Quality and Safety Assessment Research Unit » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #368672
Research Project: Assessment and Improvement of Poultry Meat, Egg, and Feed Quality

Location: Quality and Safety Assessment Research Unit

Title: Effects of dielectric barrier discharge cold plasma treatment on the structure and binding capacity of aroma compounds of myofibrillar proteins from dry-cured bacon

Author
item LOU, JI - Nanjing Agricultural University
item NASIRU, MUSTAPHA M. - Nanjing Agricultural University
item YAN, WENJING - Nanjing Agricultural University
item Zhuang, Hong
item ZHOU, GUANGHONG - Nanjing Agricultural University
item ZHANG, JIANHAO - Nanjing Agricultural University

Submitted to: LWT - Food Science and Technology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/7/2019
Publication Date: 9/11/2019
Citation: Lou, J., Nasiru, M., Yan, W., Zhuang, H., Zhou, G., Zhang, J. 2019. Effects of dielectric barrier discharge cold plasma treatment on the structure and binding capacity of aroma compounds of myofibrillar proteins from dry-cured bacon. LWT - Food Science and Technology. volume 117, 108606.

Interpretive Summary: The flavor characteristics of meat directly affect the quality of finished products and can be significantly impacted by the interaction between flavor compounds and meat proteins. Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD)-based atmospheric cold plasma (CP) is a non-thermal antimicrobial technique for inactivating foodborne pathogens and extending shelf life of food. The inactivation relies predominately on formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) during, as well as, after cold plasma generation. However, it has been shown that proteins can also be attacked by ROS, resulting in the changes in protein structures and amino acid side chains which affect their interaction with flavor compounds. The objective of our present study was to evaluate the effects of DBD-based CP treatments on the interaction between meat proteins and flavor-active volatiles in dry-cured bacon. Our results showed that the CP treatments resulted in decreased a-helices structure while an increasing portion of ß-sheets and random coils in meat proteins and enhanced the flavor compounds binding capacity of treated meat proteins. This study demonstrated that DBD-based, non-thermal CP treatments may affect flavor of further-processed meat products.

Technical Abstract: The aim of this work was to investigate the influence of dielectric barrier discharge cold plasma (DBD-CP) on the structure and aroma compounds binding capacity of myofibrillar proteins (MPs) extracted from Chinese dry-cured bacon. MPs were treated with DBD-CP at 0, 50, 60 and 70kV for 150s to monitor the binding ability with aroma compounds such as 3-methyl-butanal, 2-methyl-butanal, nonanal, heptanal and octanal, microstructure, primary and secondary structure changes of MPs using GC-MS, SDS-PAGE, scanning electron microscope (SEM) and FTIR spectroscopy. FTIR spectroscopy revealed a decrease in the a-helices structure while an increasing portion of P-sheets and random coils for all treatments, the relative contents of P-turns had no significant difference between treatments. The flavor compounds binding capacity of MPs enhanced from 50 kV to 70 kV treatment, probably due to the different modifications in protein structure and surface, also the oxidation systems generated by DBD-CP treatment increased hydrophobicity and unfolding of MPs. The result also showed that hydrophobic amino acids increased from 50 kV to 70 kV treatment which could be related to the improvement of binding ability. This study demonstrated that DBD-CP could be exploited to modify the functionality of MPs and improve the flavor of meat products.