Starch and Starch Complexes: Structure, Functional Properties and Food Applications

A special issue of Foods (ISSN 2304-8158). This special issue belongs to the section "Grain".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 August 2025 | Viewed by 231

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
College of Food and Bioengineering, National & Local Joint Engineering Research Center of Cereal-Based Foods (Henan), Zhengzhou University of Light Industry, Zhengzhou 450001, China
Interests: carbohydrate modification and functional regulation

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Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Food Nutrition and Safety, School of Food Science and Engineering, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, Tianjin 300457, China
Interests: modified starch and treatment method; structural design and functional regulation of novel resistant starch; human intestinal health
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
College of Food Science and Technology, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou 450000, China
Interests: structure and function regulation of starch complexes

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Starch is a kind of macromolecular carbohydrate which is formed through the glucoside bond from glucose molecules. It is widely used in food, papermaking, textiles, medicine, agriculture, and other fields. Due to the limited properties of common native starch, research has been focused on the exploitation of new starch resources and the new green modification technology of starch, improving the structure and functional properties. Moreover, starch can interact with other food components (protein, lipid, polyphenol, etc.) to form starch complexes, which will change the structural and functional properties of starch, especially the nutritional function. The precise design of starch structure to regulate its functional properties (enzyme resistance, prebiotic properties, etc.) has become a significant focal point. This Special Issue aims to focus on the following, but not limited to, topics:

(1) Development and application of new starch resources;

(2) Development of innovative green modification technologies of starch, such as physical, enzymatic, or double/triple modification;

(3) Construction, structure, and properties of new starch complexes;

(4) New characterization techniques for the structure and functional properties of starch and starch complexes;

(5) New food applications of starch and starch complexes.

Prof. Dr. Yizhe Yan
Dr. Jinwei Wang
Dr. Bin Niu
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • starch
  • starch complexes
  • green modification technologies
  • multi-scale structure
  • functional properties
  • characterization technologies
  • food applications

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

17 pages, 991 KiB  
Article
Insights into the Formation of Ternary Complexes Among Wheat Starch, Lauric Acid and Protein: Effects of Plasma Pretreatment Times and Protein Types
by Bin Niu, Ziyu Wang and Yizhe Yan
Foods 2025, 14(11), 1922; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods14111922 - 28 May 2025
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Abstract
Starch-lipid-protein ternary complexes have attracted more attention, and physical processing is gradually being applied to their preparation. This study was to understand the effect of atmospheric cold plasma (ACP) pretreatment times (1–4 min) and protein types (whey protein isolate (WPI), soy protein isolate [...] Read more.
Starch-lipid-protein ternary complexes have attracted more attention, and physical processing is gradually being applied to their preparation. This study was to understand the effect of atmospheric cold plasma (ACP) pretreatment times (1–4 min) and protein types (whey protein isolate (WPI), soy protein isolate (SPI), and egg white protein isolate (EWP)) on the wheat starch (WS)-lauric acid (LA)-protein ternary complexes. Experimental results indicated that one-minute ACP pretreatment of WS led to the increase in the amylose content to 30.02%, which produced the largest number of WS-LA-protein complexes (CI value of 69.21%, 67.41%, and 62.81% for WS-LA-WPI, WS-LA-SPI, and WS-LA-EWP complexes, respectively), resulting in the most ordered structure and higher enthalpy change. In vitro digestibility results based on starch showed that WS1-LA-protein complexes exhibited the lowest digestibility with the highest resistant starch content of 28.09%, 27.93%, and 27.41% for these three kinds of complexes, respectively. However, when the treatment time for WS was more than 1 min, a downward trend occurred, indicating that ACP pretreatment of WS for 1 min was the most beneficial for forming complexes. PCA results also verified that ACP pretreatment of WS for different times could significantly impact the generation and structure of ternary complexes. Moreover, protein types also affected the formation and physicochemical properties of ternary complexes. Notably, WPI, with the higher emulsifying property, formed a larger number (CI value of 69.21%), more ordered structure (Xv of 10.56%), and higher thermal stability of ternary complexes than SPI and EWP. This study presents a burgeoning technology to regulate the generation, structure, and functional properties of starch-lipid-protein complexes. Full article
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