Physicochemical and functional characteristics of proteins treated by a pH‐shift process: a review

Summary Advanced structures of food proteins are maintained by many forces such as hydrophobic activities, electrostatic interaction, and disulphide bond interaction, which can affect their functional characteristics to a certain extent. Therefore, many approaches have been utilised to improve functional characteristics of food proteins. pH‐shift process refers to the method that food proteins are treated under extreme alkaline or acid conditions followed by adjusting pH to isoelectric point or neutral pH. Many studies have showed that pH‐shift process can significantly affect the functional characteristics of food proteins, for example emulsifying activities, forming property, solubility and water/oil adsorption ability. pH‐shift process has been utilised to recover protein isolates from many sources including fish, fish by‐products, meat processing products. Many researches have indicated that the functional and physicochemical characteristics of recovered protein isolates are significantly influenced by pH‐shift process. In this paper, the latest studies regarding the functional and physicochemical characteristics of proteins treated or recovered through pH‐shift process, and potential applications of obtained protein isolates in the production of the hydrolysates or used as a delivery system were reviewed.