Peroxidases in food industry : crosslinking of proteins and polysaccharides to impart novel functional properties

Covalent attachment of proteins to carbohydrates can significantly change the functional properties of the polymers, which may be useful industrially. To produce novel functional polymers,for food applications, we explored the enzymatic crosslinking of proteins and polysaccharides. Heterologous conjugates of wheat arabinoxylan and alpha-lactalbumin were prepared by peroxidase-mediated cross-linking, using sequential addition of the arabinoxylan to the mixture of alpha-lactalbumin, peroxidase and hydrogen peroxide. Formation of reaction products was followed by size exclusion chromatography. The protein-arabinoxylan conjugates were separated by anion exchange chromatography and characterized by infrared spectroscopy. The viscosity and emulsifying properties of the novel polymers were measured.