Interaction of pepper numbing substances with myofibrillar proteins and numbness perception under thermal conditions: A structural mechanism analysis

• Published in: Food chemistry 2024-08, Vol.449, p.139203-139203, Article 139203
• Main Authors: Wang, Shuaiqian, Chen, Yu, Lu, Yan, Jiang, Diandian, Lin, Hongbin, Jiang, Zhenju, Tang, Jie, Dong, Wei, Zhao, Jie
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animals; food chemistry; Gibbs free energy; heat; Hot Temperature; Humans; hydrogen; Hydrogen Bonding; Hydroxy-α-sanshool; Hypesthesia; Meat Products - analysis; Meat protein; Molecular Docking Simulation; molecular dynamics; Molecular Dynamics Simulation; Molecular simulation; molecular weight; Muscle Proteins - chemistry; Myofibrils - chemistry; particle size; pepper; Protein Binding; Sensory properties; sensory receptors; Swine; transient receptor potential vanilloid channels; TRPV Cation Channels - chemistry; TRPV Cation Channels - metabolism; TRPV1
• ISSN: 0308-8146; 1873-7072
• DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2024.139203

This study examined the interaction between myofibrillar proteins (MPs) and the numbing substance hydroxy-α-sanshool (α-SOH) in a thermal environment, and provided an explanation of the numbness perception mechanism through muti-spectroscopic and molecular dynamics simulation methodology. Results showed that addition of α-SOH could reduce the particle size and molecular weight of MPs, accompanied by changes in the tertiary and secondary structure, causing the α-helix of MPs transitioned to β-sheet and β-turn due to the reorganization of hydrogen bonds. After a moderate heating (60 or 70 °C), MPs could form the stable complexes with α-SOH that were associated with attachment sites and protein wrapping. The thermal process might convert a portion of α-SOH’ into hydroxy-β-sanshool’ (β-SOH’). When docking with the sensory receptor TRPV1, the RMSD, RMSF and binding free energy all showed that β-SOH’ demonstrated a low affinity, thereby reducing the numbing perception. These findings can provide a theoretical foundation for the advanced processing of numbing meat products. [Display omitted] •α-SOH promoted MPs' thermal degradation.•α-SOH facilitated the actin–myosin binding.•Moderate heating (60 or 70 °C) induced a stable MPs/α-SOH complex.•α-SOH’ exhibited better affinity to the TRPV1 receptor than the β-SOH’.