4. Conclusions
The MTGase-incubation resulted in the formation of SPI-stabilized
emulsion gels at various ø values (0.2–0.6), but their gel strength and
WHC progressively increased with increasing the ø. The differences in
the properties were closely associated with the differences in microstructure
of the formed gels. The formed gels at high ø (e.g. 0.6)
exhibited compact particulate network with coarse strands consisting
of ‘aggregated’ or ‘clustered’ oil droplets, while the network of the
gels at low ø (e.g., 0.2) was filamentous in nature consisting of fine
strands with oil droplets incorporated. Increasing the ø up to 0.5 progressively
improved the entrapment of the proteins within the gel
network. The gelling mechanism of SPI emulsions by MTGase at
high ø might be mainly through coagulation or aggregation of
protein-coated oil droplets, whereas at low ø, the gel network was
more like that of enzyme-set protein gels. These findings would be
of vital importance for the development of enzyme-set proteinstabilized
emulsion gels as the carriers for lipid-soluble bioactives.