Improved thermal and oxidation stabilities of pickering high internal phase emulsions stabilized using glycated pea protein isolate with glycation extent

The development of food grade high internal phase emulsions (HIPEs) stabilized by plant protein-based particles has attracted widespread attention due to their potential applications in food, cosmetic, and biomedical fields. This work reported that glycation with glucose progressively improved the emulsification efficiency of pea protein isolate (PPI) in a glycation extent manner. The physicochemical and structural properties of glycated PPI (gPPI) products with different glycation extent of 0%–36.69% were characterized. The glycation with increasing glycation extent led to a decrease in particle diameter ranging from 157.53 nm to 115.77 nm, while the three-phase contact angle remarkably increased from 54.85° to 79.62°. In addition to emulsification efficiency, glycation progressively facilitated protein adsorption at the interface and defined interfacial structure. The improved thermal and oxidation stability of gPPI by increasing glycation extent was largely attributed to enhanced conformation flexibility that also facilitated formation of bridged emulsions. These findings are important for developing PPI-based Pickering stabilizers for HIPEs and improving insight on modified emulsifying properties of gPPI via glycation extent.