Strong hydrophilicity of polysaccharide and physicochemical instability of peptides limit application of polysaccharide-peptide mixtures in food industry. In this study, a natural resource platform of polysaccharide-peptide conjugates was constructed through Maillard reaction from chitosan and casein hydrophobic peptide. By choosing the molecular weight and deacetylation degree of chitosan and other reaction parameters, the conjugated chitosan-peptides possess extensive HLB values from 6 to 14 were obtained with grafting degree of 3.10%–15.08%. The conjugates have gained dramatically improved emulsifying ability, and endowed the emulsion higher antioxidant capacity than the peptide, chitosan and the mixture of peptide-chitosan has. Emulsions prepared with all conjugates exhibited long-term stability and strengthened tolerance towards temperature and electrolyte stimuli. This stable emulsion system also provided an effective encapsulation, protection and controlled release of curcumin, which may provide a method for transfer polysaccharides to stable emulsifiers with broader HLB values and application.

多糖的强亲水性和肽的物理化学不稳定性限制了多糖-肽混合物在食品工业中的应用。在这项研究中，通过壳聚糖和酪蛋白疏水肽的美拉德反应构建了多糖-肽结合物的天然资源平台。通过选择壳聚糖的分子量和脱乙酰度及其他反应参数，得到的共轭壳聚糖肽的HLB值范围从6到14，接枝率为3.10％-15.08％。该缀合物获得了显着改善的乳化能力，并且赋予了乳剂比肽，壳聚糖和肽-壳聚糖的混合物更高的抗氧化能力。用所有结合物制备的乳液均显示出长期稳定性，并增强了对温度和电解质刺激的耐受性。该稳定的乳液体系还提供了姜黄素的有效包封，保护和控制释放，这可以提供一种将多糖转移到具有更宽HLB值和应用的稳定乳化剂中的方法。