Hybridising plasma functionalized water and ultrasound pretreatment for enzymatic protein hydrolysis of Larimichthys polyactis: Parametric screening and optimization.

Hybridising plasma functionalized water and ultrasound pretreatment for the enzymatic hydrolysis (HPUEH) of Larimichthys polyactis was evaluated by adopting Plackett-Burman design for parametric screening of six key variables, and Box-Behnken design for optimizing three most significant variables including plasma generating voltage (PV), ultrasound treatment time (UT), and enzyme concentration (EC). The models developed for predicting the degree of hydrolysis (DoH), protein recovery (PVY), and soluble protein content (SPC) were sufficiently fitted to the experimental data (R2 ≥ 0.966) with non-significant lack of fit and used for determining the optimum conditions as PV of 70 V, UT of 15 min, and EC of 1.787%, with predictive values of 27.74%, 85.62%, and 3.28 mg/mL for DoH, PVY, and SPC, respectively. HPUEH presented hydrolysates with smaller peptide sizes and molecular weights, enhanced DoH, PVY, SPC, amino acids and antioxidant activity, but reduced emulsifying and foaming properties when compared with conventional enzymatic hydrolysis.