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A series of studies based on biochemical assays and electrophoretical observations has been conducted in order to investigate activity distributions and partially characterize various types of proteinases in the digestive tract of grass carp, Ctenopharyngodon idella (Val.). The casein digestion assays revealed that the presence of acidic proteinase had the highest activity at pH 2.5–3.0 and the alkaline proteinases at pH 10.0. The acidic proteinase activity distribution was found to decrease gradually from the oesophagus to the anus. Pepstatin A and EDTA inhibited the acidic proteinases activity. The SDS‐substrate‐PAGE showed that crude extraction of grass carp intestine contained an acidic proteinase active component with molecular mass of 28.5 ku. The substrate‐PAGE at neutral pH condition showed the presence of two acidic proteinase active components. The activity distribution of alkaline proteinase was found to slightly fluctuate along the intestine. And the whole intestine had very high activity. The inhibition assays and substrate specificity assays showed that trypsin was the main active component of the alkaline proteinases. The SDS‐substrate‐PAGE further showed that the crude extraction of grass carp intestine had four types of alkaline proteinase with molecular mass of 26.4, 30.8, 43.0 and 105.0 ku respectively. They were characterized to be trypsin (26.4, 30.8 and 43.0 ku) and un‐serine proteinase (105.0 ku) respectively. No chymotrypsin was detected.

This study investigated the esterification of pigskin gelatin with fatty acid catalyzed by acid in aqueous medium. Factors affecting the esterification reaction B temperature, pH, water content, fatty acid concentration, fatty acid type and reaction time-were elucidated in the view of optimizing the reaction. Under the same experimental conditions, increase in fatty acid concentration permitted the determination of the maximum amount of fatty acid that could be esterified per unit weight of gelatin and demonstrated that not all the hydroxyl functional groups present in the gelatin could be blocked by the fatty acid chains.

Pulsed electric fields (PEF) were applied to neutral ginkgo cloudy juice to study the influence of the electric field strength, the treatment time and temperature on microbial inactivation. The results showed that microbial inactivation increased with the electric field strength, the treatment time and temperature. PEF treatment caused 3.39 and 4.44-log cycles reduction of coliforms and total plate counts, respectively, when pulse duration was 3 s, the electric field strength 30 kV/cm, the treatment time 520 s and the water bath temperature 15°C. Under the same conditions, the microbial shelf life of ginkgo cloudy juice was extended to 24 days at 4°C and 18 days at room temperature. A 3.7-log cycles reduction of the total yeast and mould counts was obtained by applying 390 s of 30 kV/cm at 15°C.Yeast and mould cells were less resistant to PEF process than bacteria cells. The effect of heat generated during the PEF treatment was limited on microbial inactivation. Temperature and the induced heat by PEF had synergistic effects to microbial inactivation in cloudy ginkgo juice.

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