Study of mycoprotein extraction methods and its functional properties

The trend of using protein produced from microorganisms to be a meat substitute or replacing other meat alternative sources such as soy and pea is becoming increasingly popular because of its possibility to produce meat-like food products and other functional properties such as its emulsifying properties. The effective use of mycoprotein for food applications requires liberation of cell protein by destruction of indigestible cell walls. Therefore, with an aim of investigating different treatments for cell wall degradation and mycoprotein extraction along with research of filamentous fungal protein functionalities, it offers a possibility to increase the potential usage of filamentous fungal biomass on food applications. High pressure homogenization (HPH) was found to be the most effective methods on cell wall degradation compared with ultrasonication and enzymatic treatment. A pH-shifting procedure was performed to solubilize and recover the proteins. Combination of HPH and pH-shifting for mycoprotein extraction have achieved an overall protein yield of 71 % of original filamentous fungal biomass, with a protein concentration up to 77 % in dry weight. The emulsifying properties of freeze-dried protein isolate (FDPI) and spray-dried protein isolate (SDPI) did not show significant difference, but they were better than the freeze-dried fungal biomass (FDB). The foaming ability of FDPI and SDPI did not show significant difference, while the foaming stability of FDPI was greater than SDPI. Both FDPI and SDPI have greater foaming properties than FDB. The findings of this study can help for better understanding of the application of mycoprotein and optimizing the protein extraction from filamentous fungi.