Heat treatment of β-lactoglobulin affects its digestion and translocation in the upper digestive tract

Ying Deng, Coen Govers, Monic Tomassen, Kasper Hettinga, Harry J. Wichers*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

19 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Heat treatment is a commonly applied unit operation in the processing of β-lactoglobulin containing products. This does, however, influence its structure and thereby impacts its activity and digestibility. We describe how various heat-treatments of β-lactoglobulin change the digestibility using a modified version of the current consensus INFOGEST protocol. Additionally, protein was investigated for its translocation over the intestinal epithelial barrier, which would bring them in contact with immune cells. The extent of gastric digestibility was higher when the protein structure was more modified, while the influence of glycation with lactose was limited. Translocation studies of protein across Caco-2 cell monolayers showed a lower translocation rate of protein heated in solution compared to the others. Our study indicates that structural modifications after different heat-treatments of β-lactoglobulin increase in particular gastric digestibility and the translocation efficiency across intestinal epithelial cells.

Original languageEnglish
Article number127184
JournalFood Chemistry
Volume330
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Nov 2020

Keywords

  • Caco-2 monolayer
  • Heat treatment
  • Hydrophobicity
  • Immune system
  • In vitro digestion
  • Translocation
  • β-Lactoglobulin

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