Engineered Recombinant Strategies to Organogel Design for Food Product Formulations

能够对食品进行工程改造的新战略对于实现向植物性食品产品的转变和取代动物来源的产品至关重要。在食品工业中，球蛋白、蛋白和酪蛋白等分子通常用于乳状液的配制和稳定。在没有热加工的情况下，控制凝结和相关的流变性对于食品的稳定配方是重要的，然而很少有工业可行的策略允许这样的过程。此外，组织工程领域还需要新的策略来设计可用于修复和愈合软组织的水凝胶支架。乳液和有机凝胶是这类应用的极具吸引力的材料，因为它们除了可以控制力学和粘弹性之外，还可以控制纳米到微观结构，但需要设计能够控制细胞间和整体流变性的新型支架蛋白。本项目将利用超分子相互作用来组装和配制用于组织工程的食品和有机凝胶支架。允许这种设计的基于蛋白质的起始材料还没有被设计出来。该项目将研究调节乳液和有机凝胶的整体流变性和机械性能的多尺度组装工艺。将解决知识中的三个主要差距：(A)控制有机水胶体的相变和胶凝的能力；(B)调节所产生的有机凝胶的纳米到宏观尺度机械性能的能力；以及(C)复制天然肉类食品的多尺度复杂结构的能力。我们的方法将包括初步评估不同类型的超分子组件，基于短肽部分，然后设计相关的目标肽识别的重组支架蛋白。这些洞察力将建立一套指导基于分级蛋白质的有机凝胶食品生物材料的合理设计的规则。该项目所带来的进展将为发现高功能成分(例如，酶和超分子偶联的结合伙伴)和构建处于分子组装过程核心的蛋白质开辟新的途径。该行业合作伙伴将通过使用合成生物学方法，将这些成分嵌入到工业上可行的配方中，目的是提高感官体验，并潜在地改善可持续植物性食品的营养状况。例如，这些策略的商业可行性可以通过将表达转移到以植物为基础的系统，如水稻或其他种子来扩大。通过设计基于有机凝胶的食品加工的新策略，该项目将解决BBSRC在食品、营养和健康方面的战略优先事项。此外，通过设计重组蛋白质的基础自组装和控制有机凝胶的流变性，它将解决合成生物学的优先事项。与工业界的密切合作将使所开发的系统得以翻译，并解决工业生物技术新战略方法的优先事项。最后，设计的有机凝胶可能会在其他领域得到应用，如组织工程，与整个生命过程中健康老龄化的优先事项保持一致

Novel strategies enabling the engineering of food products are essential to allow a shift towards plant-based food products and the replacement of animal origin products. Molecules such as globulins, albumins and casein are commonly used for the formulation and stabilisation of emulsions in the food industry. The control of setting and associated rheological properties, in the absence of thermal processing is important for stable formulation of food products, however few industrially-viable strategies allow such process.In addition, the field of tissue engineering also requires novel strategies for the design of hydrogel scaffolds that can be applied to repair and heal soft tissues. Emulsions and organogels are attractive materials for such applications, as they enable the control of nano- to micro-structure, in addition to mechanics and viscoelastic properties, but require the engineering of novel scafold proteins enabling the control of interacial as well as bulk rheological properties.This project will exploit supramolecular interactions to assemble and formulate food products and organogel scaffolds for tissue engineering. Protein-based starting materials allowing such design have not been engineered yet. This project will investigate multi-scale assembly processes regulating the bulk rheological and mechanical properties of emulsions and organo-gels. Three major gaps in knowledge will be addressed: (a) the ability to control the phase transition and gellation of organo-hydrocolloids; (b) the ability to regulate the nano-to-macroscale mechanical properties of resulting organo-gels; and (c) the ability to replicate the multiscale complex architecture of natural meat-based foods. Our approach will consists in initially evaluating different types of supramolecular assemblies, based on short peptide moieties, prior to engineering recombinant scaffold proteins with relevant target peptides identified. These insights will establish a set of rules guiding the rational design of hierarchical protein-based organogel food biomaterials.The advances that will be enabled by this project will open new avenues for the discovery of high functionality ingredients (e.g. enzymes and binding partners for supramolecular coupling) and structuring proteins that will be at the core of molecular assembly processes. The industry partner will embed these components within industrially viable formulations, through the use of synthetic biology approaches, with the goal of boosting sensory experience and potentially improve the nutritional profile of sustainable plant-based foods. For example, commercial viability of these strategies could be expanded, by moving expression to plant-based systems such as rice or other seeds.Through the design of novel strategies for the processing of food products, based on organogels, this project will address the BBSRC strategic priority in Food, Nutrition and Health. In addition, through the design of recombinant proteins underlying the self-assembly and control of rheological properties of organogels, it will address the priority on Synthetic Biology. The close collaboration with industry will enable translation of systems developed and address the priority on New Strategic Approaches to Industrial Biotechnology. Finally, organogels designed may find application in other fields, such as tissue engineering, aligned with the priority on Healthy Ageing Across the Lifecourse