Eugenol-loaded chitosan emulsion holds the texture of chilled hairtail (Trichiurus lepturus) better: mechanism exploration by proteomic analysis

Abstract

Eugenol-loaded chitosan emulsion (ELCE) has been proved to have an excellent antibacterial property. In this study, the texture of ELCE-treated hairtail was found to be better than that of the control group. The method of iTRAQ labeled quantitative proteome analysis was used to clarify the mechanism for the phenomenon that ELCE retained the texture of chilled hairtail at the molecular level. Compared to the protein composition at the starting point of storage, for ELCE-treated and control groups, 277 and 187 proteins were selected as differential proteins for ELCE-treated hairtail, respectively. For treated and control groups at the endpoint of storage, myosin heavy chain, slow myosin heavy chain 2, and myosin were the top 3 significantly high content proteins of ELCE-treated hairtail, suggesting a better texture from the view of structure-related proteins. By preventing microbial degradation of structural proteins, ELCE kept the texture of hairtail, providing customers with high-quality hairtail.