Enzyme-modified soya products

Soya Proteins. Early attempts to make albumen substitutes from soya protein also ran into problems. A bean flavour tended to appear in the finished product. A solution to these problems has been found. Whipping agents based on enzyme modified soy proteins are now available. The advantage of enzymatic modification is that by appropriate choice of enzymes the protein can be modified in a very controlled way. Chemical treatment would be far less specific. In making these materials the manufacturer has control of the substrate and the enzyme, allowing the final product to be almost made to order. The substrates used are oil-free soy flakes or flour or soy protein concentrate or isolate. The enzymes to use are chosen from a combination of pepsin, papain, ficin, trypsin or bacterial proteases. The substrate will be treated with one or more enzymes under carefully controlled conditions. The finished product is then spray dried. 

Straub, J.A., Hertel, C., Hammes, W.P. Limits of a PCR-based detection method for genetictdly modified soya beans in wheat bread production. Z. Lebensm. Unters. Forsch. A 208, 77 (1999) Suckling, C.J. (Eds.) Enzyme chemistry. Chapman and Hall London. 1984... 

Glycerophospholipids are important components of biological membranes and are thus widely spread in nature. Partially purified products are used for a variety of applications, with soya lecithin as a typical example. Enzymes can be used to modify glycerophospholipids in various ways and in the surfactant area removal of one of the fatty acids to make lysophospholipids is the most important example. Sometimes this reaction is carried out only to make it easier to remove the phospholipids fraction from the neutral fat, such as in the processing of vegetable oils. This enzymatic de-gumming is an important industrial process [20]. In other applications, lysophospholipids are produced in order to improve the emulsifying properties of the lipids. One such example is in the preparation of mayonnaise, with improved emulsion stability [21]. In this application, phospholipase A2 is used selectively to remove the fatty acid in the sn-2 position. 

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