An activity-guided fractionation approach was applied to enzymatically hydrolyzed mushroom protein with the goal of identifying saltiness enhancing and taste-modulating substances. This approach led to the identification of several pyroglutamyl dipeptides that exhibited saltiness and kokumi enhancing effects in a low sodium chicken broth. The dipeptides were identified in the mushroom hydrolysates through pairing sensory analysis with mushroom hydrolysate fractions obtained through solid-phase extraction (SPE), gel permeation chromatography (GPC), and semi-preparative reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC). The taste modulating thresholds of the pyroglutamyl dipeptides were determined in a NaCl (0.2%) aqueous broth containing a mixture of 5’-nucleotides and amino acids at the concentrations measured in the hydrolyzed mushroom samples. A liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method was then employed to quantitate the pyroglutamyl dipeptides in the samples. The levels of the dipeptides in the hydrolysate were determined to be below their taste modulating thresholds. Interestingly, each pyroglutamyl dipeptide (alone) showed no taste modulation activity in the model broth when prepared at the concentrations determined in the hydrolysate. However, when all the dipeptides were added together, there was a significant enhancement of both the salty and the kokumi taste qualities, suggesting a sub-threshold synergistic taste modulating effect. The results of this work lay the groundwork for future studies aimed at the application of pyroglutamyl dipeptides derived from mushrooms for flavor enhancement in reduced-sodium foods.

Taste-modulating pyroglutamyl dipeptides from mushrooms

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

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