空间限域蛋白凝聚体实现可持续食品制造

文献信息

中文摘要

日益加剧的气候压力与全球人口的快速扩张，威胁着动物蛋白的长期安全。目前全球植物基蛋白市场估值约为200–225亿美元，预计到2030年代初将扩展至380–430亿美元，这表明对可规模化、可持续的替代蛋白制造存在强劲的转化需求。然而，大多数替代蛋白具有内在的胶体不稳定性，限制了其在定制粘弹性食品材料中的应用。本研究确立了空间限域液-液相分离（SCLLPS）作为一种面向粘弹性蛋白制造的多功能方法。在动力学上，在协同的表面斑块相互作用与体积排阻效应的驱动下，高负载量（15.0 wt %）的蛋白发生选择性相分配，并被空间截留于多糖基质的阴离子结构域内。在热力学上，空腔包裹水的释放与结合水的保留共同提供了形成具有长期胶体稳定性的富蛋白液体凝聚体的能量驱动力。在力学上，这种空间有序的凝聚体对整体粘弹性提供了优异的调控能力，从而可定制流体力学行为，解决了迄今长期存在的挑战。SCLLPS的广泛普适性已在多种植物和真菌蛋白与不同阴离子多糖的组合中得到验证，为低环境影响的食品制造提供了一个通用的凝聚体调控平台，并大幅降低了碳、水和土地足迹。

英文摘要

Escalating climate pressures paired with rapid global population expansion threaten long-term animal protein security. The global plant-based protein market, presently valued at US$20-22.5 billion, is forecast to expand to US$38-43 billion by the early 2030s, signaling a robust translational demand for scalable, sustainable manufacturing of alternative proteins. However, most alternative proteins are featured by intrinsic colloidal instability, limiting their deployment in tailor-made viscoelastic food materials. This work establishes spatially confined liquid-liquid phase separation (SCLLPS) as a versatile approach towards viscoelastic protein manufacturing. Kinetically, driven by synergistic surface patch interactions and volume exclusion effects, proteins at a high loading (15.0 wt %) undergo selective phase partitioning and become spatially entrapped within anionic domains of polysaccharide matrices. Thermodynamically, the release of cavity-wrap water and retention of bound water jointly provide the energetic driving force forming protein-enriched liquid condensates with long-term colloidal stability. Mechanically, such spatially ordered condensates afford exceptional control over bulk viscoelasticity to tailor fluid mechanics, addressing a long-standing challenge to date. The broad generality of SCLLPS is verified across diverse plant and fungal proteins coupled with distinct anionic polysaccharides, delivering a universal condensate-tuning platform for low-impact food manufacturing with drastically reduced carbon, water, and land footprints.