Screening of natural myofibril-bound serine protease inhibitors based on molecular docking and their effects on the quality of surimi gels

Qianqian Liang; Xin Jiang; Dajun Wang; Shumin Zhang; Qifei Hua; Wenzheng Shi

doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2025.145314

Screening of natural myofibril-bound serine protease inhibitors based on molecular docking and their effects on the quality of surimi gels

Food Chem. 2025 Jun 25:491:145314. doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2025.145314. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Qianqian Liang¹, Xin Jiang¹, Dajun Wang², Shumin Zhang², Qifei Hua¹, Wenzheng Shi³

Affiliations

¹ College of Food Science and Technology, Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai 201306, China.
² Yantai Haiyu Foodstuffs Co., Ltd., Yantai 264000, China.
³ College of Food Science and Technology, Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai 201306, China. Electronic address: wzshi@shou.edu.cn.

PMID: 40580600
DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2025.145314

Abstract

The effects of myofibril-bound serine protease (MBSP) inhibitors screened by molecular docking on the activity of crude MBSP (cMBSP), the thermal degradation of myofibrillar protein (MP), and the surimi gel properties were explored in this study. The results implied that five flavor enhancers screened by molecular docking had certain inhibitory effects on cMBSP activity, and could delay the degradation of MP at 55 °C. Meanwhile, the gel strength, hardness and springiness of flavor enhancers groups were improved. And the flavor enhancer groups showed a more orderly three-dimensional network structure. Moreover, saltiness and umami of surimi gel were enhanced after adding flavor enhancers, and phloretin (PR) significantly reduced the intensity of the odor attributes of surimi gel. These results indicated that all these flavor enhancers could be used as MBSP inhibitors to improve the quality of surimi gels, and the effect of PR was relatively good.

Keywords: Flavor enhancers; Myofibril-bound serine protease; Myofibrillar protein; Surimi gel.