Effects of ultrasound on the immunoreactivity of amandin, an allergen in apricot kernels during debitterizing

In this paper, an investigation was conducted on the effects of ultrasound time, power and temperatures on the immunoreactivity of the allergenic amandin in apricot kernels by western blotting analysis during the ultrasonically accelerated debitterizing. And its influencing mechanism on the structure of amandin was also analyzed by SDS-PAGE, circular dichroism spectrum, extrinsic fluorescence spectrum, surface hydrophobicity and zeta potential determination, respectively. The results indicate that ultrasound could significantly reduce the immunoreactivity of amandin during ultrasonically accelerated debitterizing, and the optimal ultrasound condition was 60 min, 300 W, 55 °C and 59 kHz and decreased the immunoreactivity to 15.61%, which might be attributed to the changes of the protein subunits, secondary and tertiary structure, and molecular aggregation state induced by ultrasound. In a word, ultrasound could not only accelerate debitterizing, but also significantly decrease the immunoreactivity of apricot kernels, which proved the feasibility of ultrasound in practical processing of apricot kernels.