Author(s):
Fuciños, C. ; Míguez, Martín ; Fuciños, Pablo ; Pastrana, Lorenzo M. ; Rúa, María L. ; Vicente, A. A.
Date: 2017
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/1822/44829
Origin: RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho
Project/scholarship:
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/5876/147337/PT;
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/5876-PPCDTI/126270/PT
;
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/COMPETE/126270/PT;
Subject(s): Whey protein nanoparticles; Caffeine release; Encapsulation efficiency; Loading capacity; Nanostructures; Full factorial design; Science & Technology
Description
This work evaluated the stability and functionality of nanotubes obtained from α-lactalbumin (α-LA). α-LA nanotubes' structure was highly stable during a freeze-drying process but not after grinding. The ability of α-LA nanotubes to encapsulate caffeine, used as a model molecule, was evaluated. α-La nanotubes were highly effective for this purpose as encapsulation efficiency (%EE) was near 100% and loading capacity (%LC) near 10% at 1.5/20 and 2/20 ratios (caffeine/α-LA, w/w). α-LA nanotubes' structure was not affected by the presence of caffeine. Also, in general, refrigeration temperatures and neutral or alkaline conditions, under which the adverse effect of chelating agents was prevented, helped to stabilise α-LA nanotubes' structure and maintain caffeine encapsulated. At 8 °C and pH 7.5, in the presence of 75 μg mL− 1 of EDTA, > 50% of the caffeine remained encapsulated into α-LA nanotubes.
Clara Fuciños gratefully acknowledge her Post-Doctoral grant (I2C 2014) from Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria (Xunta de Galicia, Spain). Pablo Fuciños gratefully acknowledges his Marie Curie COFUND Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (Project No: 600375. NanoTRAINforGrowth - INL Fellowship programme in nanotechnologies for biomedical, environment and food applications). This study was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit and COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006684), and the Project RECI/BBB-EBI/0179/2012 (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-027462).
