Intervention of transglutaminase in surimi gel under microwave irradiation

Transglutaminase (TGase) was selected as model enzyme to investigate the effects of microwave (MW) heating on its activity and structure compared to water bath (WB) heating. MW heating can enhance the activity of TGase and reach the maximum at 20 min, whereas conduction heating has little effect on the activity of TGase. The difference of dielectric properties between MW heating and WB heating were not obvious, but MW heating had higher conductivity than WB heating. The results of ultraviolet and fluorescence spectra show that MW heating can change the enzyme activity by changing the conformation of TGase. The decrease of α-helix and an increase of β-sheet and β-turn investigated by circular dichroism (CD) indicated the secondary structures of TGase were changed when treated by MW heating. Further gel properties test confirmed that TGase treated by MW could improve the functional and mechanical properties of surimi gel.