RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Morden advanced analytical tools offer valuable information into the understanding of molecular mechanism of traditional food processing. Chopping temperature is well-known to affect the surimi gel quality of silver carp, but the detailed molecular mechanism is not very clear. In this study, a gel-based proteomics was performed on the extracted surimi proteins under different chopping temperatures (0, 5, 10, and 25 °C) along with other physicochemical characterization of surimi proteins and gels. RESULTS: With increased chopping temperature, protein extractability (in 3% sodium chloride) generally decreased, while the extracted protein generally exhibited larger surface hydrophobicity, reduced intrinsic fluorescence intensity, lower sulfhydryl content. Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) profile of extracted protein showed a clear difference at 25 °C when compared with the other three temperatures, and more protein fragmentation occurred. Proteomic analysis of selected bands indicated that major myofibrillar proteins react differently with chopping temperatures, especially at 25 °C. The selected bands contained a variety of other proteins or their fragments, including adenosine triphosphate (ATP) synthase, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, glucose-6-phosphate isomerase, heat shock protein, parvalbumin, collagen, and so forth. For the surimi gel, water-holding capacity and gel strength generally decreased with increased chopping temperature. CONCLUSION: Our results suggested that chopping at 0-10 °C is acceptable for the production of silver carp surimi in terms of gel strength and water-holding capacity. However, a chopping temperature near 0 °C led to less protein oxidation and denaturation. The inferior gel quality at 25 °C is linked to a decreased concentration of extracted protein and degradation of major myofibrillar protein, the latter is likely crosslinked with sarcoplasmic proteins. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry.