Thermal properties of glycinin in crowded environments

Crowded environments, commonly found in the food system, are utilized to enhance the properties of soybean proteins. Despite their widespread application, little information exists regarding the impact of crowded environments on the denaturation behaviors of soybean proteins. In this study, we investigated how crowding agents with varying molecular weights, functional groups, and topology affect the denaturation behavior of glycinin under crowded conditions. The results reveal that thermal stability in PEG crowded environments is mainly influenced by both preferential hydration and binding. The stabilization is primarily enthalpy-driven, with aggregation contributing additional entropic stabilization. Specifically, ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol exhibit temperature-dependent, bilateral effects on glycinin stability. At the denaturation temperature, hydrophobic interactions play a predominant role, decreasing glycinin's thermal stability. However, at a molecular weight of 200 g/mol, there is a delicate balance between destabilizing and stabilizing effects, leading to no significant change in thermal stability. With the addition of PEG 400, 1000, and 2000, besides preferential hydration, additional hard-core repulsions between glycinin molecules enhance thermal stability. Methylation modification experiments demonstrated that 2-methoxyethyl ether exerted a more pronounced denaturing effect. Additionally, the cyclization of PEG 1000 decreased its stabilizing effect.