Thermal modification of hen egg white lysozyme using microwave treatment

Thermal modification has commonly been used in the processing of chicken egg white lysozyme and has shown good antibacterial results in the field of laboratory study. However, the use of conventional thermal energy sources still presents disadvantages. In this work, microwave radiation was used as a new alternative to conventional sources of thermal energy for the modification of lysozyme.

The material for modification was 5% concentration monomer lysozyme solutions with different pH levels. The enzyme was modified by microwave radiation under different microwave powers and different modification times separately. Important lysozyme protein parameters, such as: electrophoresis, hydrolytic activity, hydrophobicity, and solubility, were evaluated.

Our research showed that the number of oligomers, especially dimers, and the surface hydrophobicity increased significantly in the preparations obtained after the processes under the appropriate conditions of modification. The highest production efficiency yield was 54.4% oligomers and 30.9% dimers. An additional beneficial effect of using this new method was the fact that the hydrolytic activity did not decrease as much as in the case of other thermal methods. And the solubility of the obtained preparations was high, ranging from 87% to 100%.

The research showed that lysozyme dimer formation and other important protein properties changed effectively. Such a method not only changed the protein folding structure but also offered the advantages of a short processing time, high efficiency and easy enzyme control. It will have a greater application potential after further development.