Recovery of Yam Soluble Protein from Yam Starch Processing Wastewater

Over the past two decades, many studies have shown that the yam storage protein dioscorin, which is abundant in the wastewater of starch processing, exhibits many biological activities both in vitro and in vivo. In the present study, the acid-precipitation method was optimized using Box-Behnken design (BBD) combined with response surface methodology (RSM) for the recovery of yam soluble protein (YSP) from wastewater. The experimental yield of YSP reached 57.7%. According to relative quantitative proteomics (LC-MS/MS), the crude YSP was mainly composed of 15 dioscorin isoforms, which was further verified by anion-exchange and size-exclusion chromatography. YSP was found to be rich in glutamic acid and aspartic acid, and the eight essential acids made up approximately 33.7% of the YSP. Moreover, the YSP demonstrated antioxidant activity, including scavenging DPPH, hydroxyl and superoxide anion radicals, and the possible structure-activity relationships were discussed. These results indicated that YSP produced by acid precipitation may be used as a protein source with antioxidant properties.