The aim of this study was to investigate the correlation patterns between Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) and Raman microspectroscopic data obtained from pork muscle tissue, which helped to improve the interpretation and band assignment of the observed spectral features. The pork muscle tissue was subjected to different processing factors, including aging, salting, and heat treatment, in order to induce the necessary degree of variation of the spectra. For comparing the information gained from the two spectroscopic techniques with respect to the experimental design, multiblock principal component analysis (MPCA) was utilized for data analysis. The results showed that both FT-IR and Raman spectra were mostly affected by heat treatment, followed by the variation in salt content. Furthermore, it could be observed that IR amide I, II, and III band components appear to be effected to a different degree by brine-salting and heating. FT-IR bands assigned to specific protein secondary structures could be related to different Raman C–C stretching bands. The Raman C–C skeletal stretching bands at 1031, 1061, and 1081 cm ⁻¹ are related to the IR bands indicative of aggregated β-structures, while the Raman bands at 901 cm ⁻¹ and 934 cm ⁻¹ showed a strong correlation with IR bands assigned to α-helical structures. At the same time, the IR band at 1610 cm ⁻¹ , which formerly was assigned to tyrosine in spectra originating from pork muscle, did not show a correlation to the strong tyrosine doublet at 827 and 852 cm ⁻¹ found in Raman spectra, leading to the conclusion that the IR band at 1610 cm ⁻¹ found in pork muscle tissue is not originating from tyrosine.

Enzymatic protein hydrolysis of food processing by-products is a well-recognized strategy for producing peptide-rich formulations of added value. The biochemical complexity of this process poses a significant challenge in the use of classical analytical methods as process monitoring tools in both laboratory and industrial setups. In the present study, we are reporting an FTIR-based multivariate approach for monitoring the change in the molecular size distribution of proteins during enzymatic hydrolysis of chicken fillets and processing by-products. For 129 protein hydrolysates, weight-average molecular weight derived from size-exclusion chromatographic analysis was established as a pragmatic measure of the extent of hydrolysis. FTIR spectra acquired from dry films of the hydrolysates were used to build multivariate calibration models using partial least squares (PLS) regression. The best predictions were obtained when the data from two different raw materials, i.e., chicken fillets and mechanical chicken deboning residues, were modeled individually. A good prediction model was also achieved for the combined data from the two raw materials using canonical PLS (CPLS) regression or variable selection. The results from the current study underline the potential of FTIR spectroscopy as a rapid analytical tool for monitoring enzymatic protein hydrolysis of complex raw materials.

In this study, acetic acid (AA-2% w/v), a combination of acetic acid and citric acid (AA-1% w/v + CA-1% w/w), and three different concentrations of citric acid (CA-2, 4 and 6% w/w) were used to create chitosan solution. The FTIR analysis showed the presence of residual CA in all the CA-containing samples where no trace of AA was observed. The tensile strengths of the CA-containing samples were lower than the AA samples. Whereas the values for the elongation at break of the CA samples were higher than the AA samples, which kept increasing with an increasing CA content due to the plasticizing effect from residual citric acid. The elongation at break values for 4 and 6% CA-containing samples were 98% higher than the AA samples. The samples prepared with CA showed shorter LVE regions that reduced with an increasing CA concentration compared to the AA samples. Different acid concentrations did not have a large effect on the gelation time. However, CA-containing samples showed higher viscosities as compared to the AA-containing solution, which increased with an increasing CA content. The water vapour transmission rates of the CA-containing samples were lower than the others. All the chitosan solutions suppressed the growth of the two test strains, and none of the variants reached an abs 600 nm at 0.2.