Emulsions are enthusiastically studied for their potential use as food-grade delivery vehicles for cost-effective and efficient delivery of lipophilic bioactives. Particularly, there is an increasing interest in the use of bioactive ingredients, such as bovine lactoferrin (LF) to enhance and extend emulsion functionality. To date, scarce data exists on how LF-based hydrocolloids can be modified to alter emulsion stability or what could be the health-related implications of such modifications.
The described work will depict our efforts to use physical and chemical modifications of LF to fabricate LF-based nano-particles (NPs) and LF-based Maillard reaction products (MRPs) to modulate emulsion stability and digestibility. Results will highlight how NPs and NPs onto which anionic polysaccharides (i.e. alginate and i-carrageenan) were electrostatically deposited do not significantly (p<0.01) alter droplet size. Analytical centrifugation (LUMiszer, LUM GmbH) reveals that LF-based NPs significantly (p<0.001) increase mean droplet size compared to emulsions stabilized by native LF. Interestingly, the use of LF NPs combined with alginate or i-carrageenan is accompanied by ~30% increase in droplet size (from 429nm to about 590nm), however, significantly (p<0.01) increasing or decreasing emulsion creaming rates, respectively1. Further, the addition of the dietary fibers has been found to increase emulsion stability to artificial saliva and alter emulsion responsiveness to key digestive events, i.e. 1h of gastric proteolysis, mixing with CaCl2(0-40mM) or bile (0-25mg/mL) and 2h of simulated intestinal lipolysis. In respect to emulsion stabilization by MRPs, conjugates formed with 40kDa and 100kDa dextrans through controlled dry heating (60oC, 79%RH) will be shown to increase emulsion apparent viscosity but reducing emulsions stability at various pH (2
Principal investigator: Prof. Uri Lesmes lesmesu@tx.technion.ac.il
1. Shimoni, et al., Food Hydrocolloids, 2013, 33, (2), 264-272.
