Assessment of the Physicochemical and Conformational Changes of Ultrasound-Driven Proteins Extracted from Soybean Okara Byproduct

This study was aimed at the valorization of the okara byproduct deriving form soy food manufacturing, by using ultrasound at different temperatures for extracting the residual proteins. The physicochemical and conformational changes of the extracted proteins were investigated in order to optimize the procedure. Increasing the temperature from 20 up to 80 °C greatly enhanced the yields and the protein solubility without affecting the viscosity. The protein secondary and tertiary structures were also gradually modified in a significant way. After the ultrasonication at the highest temperature, a significant morphological transition from well-defined single round structures to highly aggregated ones was observed, which was confirmed by measuring the water contact angles and wettability. After the ultrasound process, the improvement of peptides generation and the different amino acid exposition within the protein led to an increase of the antioxidant properties. The integrated strategy applied in this study allows to foster the okara protein obtained after ultrasound extraction as valuable materials for new applications.