Effect of atmospheric cold plasma pretreatment on the formation of ternary complexes among wheat starch, β-lactoglobulin and fatty acids with different chain lengths

Yizhe Yan; Ziyu Wang; Shuyang Liu; Xinxin Zhang; Xiaolong Ji; Miaomiao Shi; Bin Niu

doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2025.142798

Effect of atmospheric cold plasma pretreatment on the formation of ternary complexes among wheat starch, β-lactoglobulin and fatty acids with different chain lengths

Food Chem. 2025 Jan 6:471:142798. doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2025.142798. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Yizhe Yan¹, Ziyu Wang², Shuyang Liu², Xinxin Zhang², Xiaolong Ji², Miaomiao Shi², Bin Niu³

Affiliations

¹ College of Food and Bioengineering, Zhengzhou University of Light Industry, Zhengzhou 450001, PR China; National & Local Joint Engineering Research Center of Cereal-Based Foods (Henan), Zhengzhou 450001, PR China. Electronic address: yanyizhe@zzuli.edu.cn.
² College of Food and Bioengineering, Zhengzhou University of Light Industry, Zhengzhou 450001, PR China.
³ College of Food Science and Technology, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou 450000, PR China. Electronic address: niubin@henau.edu.cn.

PMID: 39793358
DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2025.142798

Abstract

This study aims to examine the effect of atmospheric cold plasma (ACP) pretreatment (1-4 min) on the formation, structure, and digestibility of ternary complexes among wheat starch (WS), β-lactoglobulin (βLG) and fatty acids with different chain lengths (octanoic acid (OA), capric acid (CA), lauric acid (LA)). The complexing index results demonstrated that the greatest quantity (72.53 %, 70.38 %, 67.38 %) of WS-fatty acids-βLG complexes was formed when WS was treated with ACP for 1 min, leading to the best ordered structure and lowest digestibility caused by the increase in amylose content of WS (30.02 %). Furthermore, OA formed more complexes (72.53 %) with the same modified WS and βLG than CA and LA due to higher solubility. In conclusion, short-term ACP pretreatment of WS could promote the WS-fatty acids-βLG complexes and improve structural orderliness and resistant starch content. The present study provides an emerging green technology to facilitate the formation of starch-fatty acids-protein complexes.

Keywords: Atmospheric cold plasma; Formation; Structure; Wheat starch-fatty acids-β-lactoglobulin complexes.