Functional properties of food proteins and role of protein-polysaccharide interaction

The review paper discusses the findings on the functional properties of food proteins in multicomponent systems as well as some working hypotheses advanced during recent years at the laboratory of new food forms at the A.N.Nesmeyanov Institute of Organoelement Compounds of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Consideration is given to the following trends of research work: (i) complexing of proteins and polysaccharides, including oligomeric proteins; (ii) nature of biopolymer incompatibility in solution; (iii) effect of thermodynamic incompatibility and complexing of proteins and polysaccharides on the functional properties of food proteins, including solubility and behaviour of proteins at the water-oil interface during emulsion stabilization, as well as on protein gelation; (iv) incompatibility of proteins and polysaccharides in their water-plasticized melt mixtures and the effect of this phenomenon on the formation of structure and properties of proteins textured by thermoplastic extrusion. The importance of investigations into protein-polysaccharide interaction for understanding the mechanisms of structure formation processes in food systems is shown.