Seafood processing by-products account for approx. 75% of the total weight of the catch, and 30% of the waste is in the form of bones, skins and fins, waste that is either discarded in the sea or is processed into animal feed of low added value. Nonetheless, this raw material has a potential as a food ingredient, since constitutes an important source of biologically active molecules possessing peculiar properties and promising practical applications. Enzymatic hydrolysis is one of the methods for recovery of valuable components from fish by-products. However, to our knowledge, there is no information in the literature about the effect of enzymatic proteolysis on the antigenicity of fish proteins, which is of interest for the use of the fish protein hydrolysed as a food ingredient. Allergies to seafood are estimated to affect 1 to 2 percent of the adult population. Parvalbumins are responsible for IgE-mediated reactions in fish, while Tropomyosins are major allergens in the shrimp and the squid. In the current study, heads of seabream (Sparus aurata), muscle and tunic of giant squid (Dosidicus gigas) were hydrolysed by Pepsine, Alcalase and Esperase. These hydrolysis were carried out at 37ºC for 5 h for pepsine and at 60ºC for 3 h for the other enzymes. The cleaved peptide bonds (5) and an ELISA test using pools of sera from patient allergic to hake, shrimp, and anisaki were determined to evaluate the residual antigenicity. The enzymatic treatments enhances the fish protein hydrolysis, and, very low immunoreactivity was detected in the hydrolysates by using hake and schrimp sera. In contrast, no activity was shown against anisaki sera by either untreated/treated samples. The results suggest that proteolysis of fish waste by either of these enzymes has the potential to produce hypoallergenic hydrolysates.

Resumen del póster presentado al "EFFOST Annual Meeting 2011" celebrado en Berlín del 9 al 11 de noviembre.

Peer Reviewed