Gelatin is extracted from animal tissues using heat usually with low yields, but pepsin may increase high quality gelatin yield per unit of tissue. Gelatin from bovine lungs was extracted using heat and pepsin and the resulting gelatins were characterized. Pepsin increased gelatin yield by about 9-fold that of heat extraction alone. All bovine lung gelatin contained protein as the major proximate component, with little ash and non-detectable fat. Bovine lung gelatin had pH, moisture and protein comparable to or less than that of commercial bovine gelatin and decreased ash. Transmittance of bovine lung gelatin was substantially reduced compared to that of commercial bovine gelatin but had increased water and fat-binding capacity, and comparable or increased gelling and melting temperature.Gel strengths of bovine lung gelatin were comparable to or lower than and foam stability and emulsifying activity were lower than commercial bovine gelatin. Increased imino acid (proline and hydroxyproline) content was associated with increased gelling and melting temperatures and was comparable to commercial bovine gelatin.Heat-extracted bovine lung gelatin contained predominantly collagen γ-chains, β-chains and α-chains (α1(I) and α2(I)), with some low molecular weight peptides, while the pepsin-extracted lung gelatins were characterized by comparatively decreased β-and α-chains and increased low molecular weight peptides. The gel strength of heatextracted bovine lung gelatin was higher than that of pepsin-extracted gelatins, indicating that additional yield was associated with reduced gelatin quality. Bovine lung is a potential source of gelatin for application in diversified industrial fields and use of pepsin is a viable method for extracting additional gelatin after heat extraction of high quality (increased gel strength) gelatin from bovine lung.Keywords: gelatin, bovine lung, extraction, pepsin, emulsifying, foaming
IntroductionGelatin is a popular biopolymer used in food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic and photographic applications (Schrieber and Gareis, 2007) because of its unique functional properties (Zhou et al., 2006). Gelatin is derived from collagen, the major protein constituent of connective tissue, through partial hydrolysis using hot water, dilute acid or alkali treatments (Zhang et al., 2009). The global gelatin market volume was approximately 373,000 tons in 2013, with this market volume anticipated to grow by 3.8% every year to an estimated worth of $3,000,000,000 by 2020 (Grand View Research Inc., 2014). Gelatin derived from pig skin has accounted for the highest proportion available for use, followed by that from bovine hides and bovine bones (Karim and Bhat, 2009).Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) has been a concern with regard to the safety of gelatin from bovine sources despite the expectation that the probability of prion infectivity is low given the harsh chemical treatment of the raw material during gelatin production (Baziwane and He, 2003)
and the Scientific SteeringCommittee of the European Un...