Optimization of AOT reversed micelle forward extraction of 7S globulin subunits from soybean proteins

The work attempted to study on separating the α', α and β subunits of 7S globulin from soybean proteins by reverse micelles. The effects of six single factors (W₀, time, temperature, pH, surfactant concentration and salt solution species) on three subunit partitioning were discussed. The main influence factors (time, temperature and surfactant concentration) were optimized by the response surface test (Box-Behnken design, three factor three level) in order to optimize the forward extracting three subunits of 7S globulin. It was observed that the independent factor had substantial effect on the forward extraction yield of three subunits of 7S globulin. The statistical analysis showed that the reverse micelles could significantly affect the forward extraction efficiency of protein subunits. The highest forward extraction efficiency of α', α and β subunits achieved 78.21, 63.65 and 61.34%, respectively. The proposed method also showed that the forward extraction efficiency of subunits with larger molecular weight was higher than low molecular weight.