Research on the preparation of antioxidant peptides derived from egg white with assisting of high-intensity pulsed electric field.

Egg white protein powder, one of the main egg products, was hydrolysed by Alcalase, Trypsin, and Pepsin respectively to prepare antioxidant peptides. All hydrolysates were assayed by determination of reducing power (RP) ability. Three kinds of hydrolysates were prepared under optimal enzymatic parameters that were obtained from the preliminary one-factor-at-a-time (OFAT) and response surface methodology (RSM) experiments. The results showed that the Alcalase hydrolysates exerted the best RP ability. Thereafter, the Alcalase hydrolysates were sequentially fractionated by ultra filtration membranes in cut-off molecular weight (MW) of 30, 10, and 1 kDa, and tested their antioxidant activities in terms of RP ability, DPPH radical scavenging ability, ABTS radical scavenging ability, and FRAP assay. Effects of high intensity pulsed electric field treatment were further investigated on antioxidant peptides to improve their activities. The results showed that Alcalase hydrolysates possessed the strongest antioxidant ability compared with the other two hydrolysates, particularly for the Fraction-3 with MW <1 kDa. After PEF treatment, this fraction showed a significant improvement of RP ability within 5 h (P<0.05).