Biopreservation by sugar and/or polymeric matrixes is a thoroughly studied research topic with wide technological relevance. Ternary amorphous systems containing both saccharides and proteins are extensively exploited to model the in vivo biopreservation process. With the aim of disentangling the effect of saccharides and polypeptidic crowders (such as gelatin) on the preservation of a model protein, we present here a combined differential scanning calorimetry and UV–vis spectrophotometry study on samples of myoglobin embedded in amorphous gelatin and trehalose + gelatin matrixes at different hydrations, and compare them with amorphous myoglobin-only and myoglobin-trehalose samples. The results point out the different effects of gelatin, which acts mainly as a crowding agent, and trehalose, which acts mainly by direct interaction. Gelatin is able to improve effectively the protein thermal stability at very low hydration; however, it has small effects at medium to high hydration. Consistently, gelatin appears to be more effective than trehalose against massive denaturation in the long time range, while the mixed trehalose + collagen matrix is most effective in preserving protein functionality, outdoing both gelatin-only and trehalose-only matrixes.

中文翻译：

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拥挤环境中肌红蛋白的生物保存：明胶和海藻糖基质之间的比较

糖和/或聚合物基质的生物保存是一项经过广泛研究的研究课题，具有广泛的技术意义。包含糖和蛋白质的三元无定形系统被广泛利用来模拟体内生物保存过程。为了消除糖和多肽拥挤剂（例如明胶）对模型蛋白质保存的影响，我们在这里提出了结合差示扫描量热法和紫外可见分光光度法对无定形明胶和海藻糖中埋藏的肌红蛋白样品进行研究的方法。明胶基质在不同的水合作用下，并将它们与仅无定形肌红蛋白和肌红蛋白-海藻糖样品进行比较。结果指出，明胶和海藻糖的作用不同，明胶主要起拥挤剂的作用，海藻糖主要起直接作用的作用。明胶能够在非常低的水合作用下有效改善蛋白质的热稳定性；但是，它在中等至高水合作用下影响很小。始终如一