Unravelling the Chemical Physics of Carbohydrate Cryoprotectants for Use in Food using Novel Molecular Dynamics Methodologies

使用新型分子动力学方法揭示食品中碳水化合物冷冻保护剂的化学物理原理

• 批准号: RGPIN-2021-02792
• 负责人: GulamRazul, MohamedShajahan
• 金额: $ 2.04万
• 依托单位: St. Francis Xavier University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2021-01-01 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=742217
• 关键词: Unravelling; Chemical; Physics; Carbohydrate; Cryoprotectants

Solidification processes are common occurrences in our daily lives and an important process in industrial food production. For example, freezing of food for storage or to prevent food degradation is a routine practice across the globe. Yet, there is currently a lack of information on the detailed molecular processes of freezing foods. Understanding such processes is relevant in the freezing of seafood and animal muscle tissue for preservation and long-term storage to ensure the quality of such foods. Cryogenically freezing seafood before frozen storage has been demonstrated to retain a high-quality texture and flavor due to the rapid rate of freezing. Fast freezing rates are recognized to retain desirable attributes of seafood due to smaller ice crystal formation during the freezing process, which is less detrimental to muscle proteins compared with slower freezing rates. Introducing additives like carbohydrate cryoprotectants and salts also contributes to smaller ice crystals and enhances the quality of frozen food during freezing and the frozen storage of seafood. Addition of these compounds has been shown to extend shelf life of seafood and significantly improve quality. However, a fundamental understanding of how these cryoprotectants serve to prevent frozen damage to such foods is unclear from a microscopic molecular perspective. Computer simulation techniques offer unique insights into such complex molecular environments, as it avoids the limitations of current experiments and can be used in tandem with experiments to support experimental observations. This proposed research program will systematically undertake computational investigations into complex food carbohydrates probing their detailed molecular properties and behaviour for use as effective cryoprotectants. This research program will make significant scientific contributions to the study of food solidification processes and the freezing of biological tissues generally. A thorough understanding of the properties of these natural compounds will be invaluable to producing effective cryoprotectants for seafood. The importance and benefits of this research program to Canadians are significant. Furthermore, the scientific discoveries and insights could be applied to other industrial research areas for the design of structured foods (such as frozen dairy, margarine, pastries) and better long term frozen storage with cryoprotectants (of seafood, meat and vegetables). In addition, the use of cryoprotectants has enormous potential and can be extended to applications of cryopreservation of human and animal cells, tissues and organs.

凝固过程是我们日常生活中常见的过程，也是工业食品生产中的重要过程。例如，冷冻食物以储存或防止食物降解是全球的常规做法。然而，目前还缺乏关于冷冻食品的详细分子过程的信息。了解这一过程与海鲜和动物肌肉组织的冷冻保存和长期储存有关，以确保这些食品的质量。由于冷冻速度快，在冷冻储存之前对海鲜进行低温冷冻已被证明可以保持高质量的质地和风味。由于在冷冻过程中形成的冰晶更小，与较慢的冷冻速度相比，快速冷冻速度对肌肉蛋白质的危害更小，因此被认为可以保留海鲜的理想属性。引入碳水化合物冷冻保护剂和盐等添加剂也有助于缩小冰晶，并在冷冻和海鲜冷冻储存期间提高冷冻食品的质量。这些化合物的添加已被证明可以延长海鲜的保质期，并显著提高品质。然而，从微观分子的角度来看，对这些冷冻保护剂如何防止这些食品受到冷冻损害的基本理解尚不清楚。计算机模拟技术为这种复杂的分子环境提供了独特的见解，因为它避免了当前实验的局限性，并且可以与实验串联使用以支持实验观察。这个拟议的研究项目将系统地对复杂的食物碳水化合物进行计算研究，探索它们的详细分子特性和行为，以用作有效的冷冻保护剂。该研究项目将对食品凝固过程和生物组织冷冻的研究做出重大的科学贡献。透彻地了解这些天然化合物的性质对于生产有效的海产品冷冻保护剂将是非常宝贵的。这项研究计划对加拿大人的重要性和益处是显著的。此外，这些科学发现和见解可以应用于其他工业研究领域，如结构化食品（如冷冻乳制品、人造黄油、糕点）的设计，以及使用冷冻保护剂（海鲜、肉类和蔬菜）进行更好的长期冷冻储存。此外，低温保护剂的使用具有巨大的潜力，可以扩展到人类和动物细胞、组织和器官的低温保存应用。