The Effects of Microfluidization and Homogenization on the Composition and Structure of Liposomal Aggregates from Whey Buttermilk and Commercial Buttermilk

Abstract

The effects of microfluidization and homogenization on the structure of liposomal aggregates from whey buttermilk and commercial buttermilk Tracey Mai T. Nguyen Milk derived ingredients from the production of cheese and butter can be used as vehicles for nutrients. Buttermilk is a nutritious product of milk that comes from the churning of cream into butter. One of the advantages of buttermilk is that it is enriched in milk fat globule components, such as phospholipids and forms emulsions with fat when treated with high shear. The objective of this work was to explore the effects of shear on regular buttermilk and whey buttermilk in terms of liposomal aggregate size and chemical composition. The effects of microfluidization at 2000 psi and homogenization at 2000 psi/500 psi on the particle size distribution of liposomal aggregates between whey buttermilk (WBM) at pH 4.6 and 6.8 and commercial sweet buttermilk (SBM) at pH 4.60 were compared with whey protein isolate (WPI) at pH 4.6. At pH 6.80, WPI and SBM are too soluble in water to measure particle size but WBM is not as soluble. From this investigation, the mean particle diameter of the SBM aggregates at pH 4.6 decreased after the first pass through the microfluidizer and the same is true, after homogenization. SBM aggregates at pH 4.6 had a significantly larger mean particle diameter before treatments in both shear processes compared to WPI at pH 4.6 and WBM at pH 4.6 and WBM at pH 6.8 (p < 0.0001). WPI at pH 4.6 and WBM at both pH showed no significant differences in their mean particle size in both homogenized and microfluidized treatments. WPI and SBM samples resulted in significant particle diameter differences from before to after homogenizing at pH 4.6. SBM at pH 4.6 had significantly larger v average particle diameter than WBM at pH 4.6 (p < 0.0002), WPI at pH 4.6 (p < 0.0002) and WBM at pH 6.8 (p < 0.0045) before microfluidization at pass 0.WBM and WPI across all treatments showed very similar tendencies in small particle size attributes and some similarities in protein composition. In addition, the small aggregate size of WBM is suggested to be influenced by the presence of phospholipids and thus, creating significantly smaller mean particles compared to SBM even before inducing high shear. In contrast, treated and untreated SBM differed from WBM in phospholipid composition in both homogenization and microfluidization techniques.WBM samples contained more phospholipids than SBM, whereas WPI samples contained very low concentrations of phospholipids. Through HPLC analysis, WPI, SBM, and WBM showed different profiling of the phospholipid classes. These differences may be due structural changes of the aggregates from shearing, initial thermal treatments or hydrophobic and/or protein-phospholipid interactions between the aggregates. SBM samples also exhibited different protein profiling than WBM and WPI samples. This study suggests that high shear and presence of phospholipids impact the size distribution of liposomal aggregates through structural...