Pea Protein Extraction Assisted by Lactic Fermentation: Impact on Protein Profile and Thermal Properties

Although pea protein has been widely explored, its consumption is still limited by undesirable sensory characteristics and low solubility. All these properties can be modified during protein extraction process. Besides, previous studies showed that lactic acid bacteria (LAB) have a positive effect on legume protein ingredients in terms of flavor and functional properties. Hence, the objective of this work was to explore an alternative extraction method based on alkaline extraction/isoelectric precipitation (AEIEP) resulting in globulin-rich and residual albumin-rich fractions. Here, the decrease in pH was achieved by lactic fermentation instead of mineral acid addition. Different bacteria strains (Streptococcus thermophilus, Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacterium lactis) have been used alone or in co-culture, and the results were compared with the usual acidification. The extraction assisted by fermentation led to the increase by 20–30% in protein content/yield of the albumin fraction, meaning that the solubility of the extracted pea protein was increased. This result could be explained by the proteolytic activity of bacteria during lactic fermentation. Therefore, the thermal denaturation properties of the isolated protein fractions measured by differential scanning calorimetry could be mainly ascribed to differences in their polypeptide compositions. In particular, higher denaturation enthalpy in globulin fractions after fermentation compared to AEIEP (~15 J/g protein vs. ~13 J/g protein) revealed the relative enrichment of this fraction in pea legumins; a higher part of 7S globulins seemed to be consumed by lactic acid bacteria.