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The Effect of Pulsed Electric Fields (PEF) on Nanostructure and Monosaccharides Composition of Pectin Fractions Extracted from Green and Red Tomatoes

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Abstract

PEF technology is a non-thermal food process gaining popularity for treating fruits and vegetables. However, there has been little investigation into the impact of PEF on the biomolecular components of plant tissues. This study assesses the influence of PEF at low (1.5 kJ/kg) and medium (151 kJ/kg) intensities on the physicochemical parameters of pectin fractions isolated from green and red tomatoes. Monopolar exponential decay pulses of 1.0 and 10.0 kV/cm were delivered to alcohol-insoluble residue (AIR) recovered from mature green and ripe red tomatoes. Topography and recognition imaging were performed using atomic force microscopy (AFM) on three pectin fractions: water-soluble pectin (WSP), chelator-soluble pectin (CSP), and diluted alkali-soluble pectin (DASP). Image analysis has been used to characterize the geometrical properties of pectin. PEF treatments generated considerable structural alterations in all pectin fractions. The effect varied depending on the stage of tomato ripening and the energy input applied. The average length of WSP fibres in red tomatoes decreased dramatically (up to 50% shorter) as the intensity of the electric field increased. Green tomatoes showed the opposite effect, with the length of the WSP fibres increasing as the applied electric field increased. The monosaccharide composition revealed that PEF decreased pectin linearity independent of the fruit ripening stage. The data obtained on PEF-pectin interactions might assist in building tailored food processes that rely on pectin’s functional qualities and a better understanding of the effect of the ripening stage on PEF efficacy.

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Data Availability

The authors declare that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the paper and raw data sets generated during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

Part of the equipment used in this study was provided by the EQ-BOKU VIBT GmbH and the BOKU Core Facility Food & Bio Processing.

Funding

This work was created within a research project of the Austrian Competence Centre for Feed and Food Quality, Safety and Innovation (FFoQSI). The COMET-K1 competence centre FFoQSI is funded by the Austrian federal ministries BMK, BMDW and the Austrian provinces Lower Austria, Upper Austria and Vienna within the scope of COMET—Competence Centers for Excellent Technologies. The programme COMET is handled by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency FFG.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Food Technology, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria

    Marianna Giancaterino & Henry Jaeger

  2. FFoQSI GmbH—Austrian Competence Centre for Feed and Food Quality, Safety and Innovation, Tulln, Austria

    Marianna Giancaterino

  3. Institute of Agrophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Lublin, Poland

    Justyna Cybulska & Artur Zdunek

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  1. Marianna Giancaterino
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  2. Justyna Cybulska
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Contributions

Marianna Giancaterino, data curation, formal analysis, investigation, validation, writing—original draft. Justyna Cybulska, methodology, formal analysis and writing—review and editing. Artur Zdunek, project management, writing—review and editing. Henry Jaeger, project management, and writing—review.

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Correspondence to Marianna Giancaterino.

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Giancaterino, M., Cybulska, J., Zdunek, A. et al. The Effect of Pulsed Electric Fields (PEF) on Nanostructure and Monosaccharides Composition of Pectin Fractions Extracted from Green and Red Tomatoes. Food Bioprocess Technol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11947-024-03401-4

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