Nanostructural Characterization of Cafish Skin.pdf

C:FoodChemistry Toxicology JFS C: Food Chemistry and Toxicology Nanostructural Characterization of Catfish Skin Gelatin Using Atomic Force Microscopy HONGSHUN YANG, YIFEN WANG, JOE M. REGENSTEIN, AND DAVID B. ROUSE ABSTRACT: To determine the nanostructure of gelatin from catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) skin, atomic force mi- croscopy (AFM) was used to study gelatin aggregates. The gelatin was extracted at an optimized acid concentration after alkaline processing. First, the AFM imaging parameters were optimized to obtain high-quality images. Then height mode with a 2-dimensional plane, 3-dimensional topographical images, and error signal mode images, which removed slow variations in surface topography but highlighted the edges of sample features, were used to analyze the structure of particles. The results describe fish gelatin at a nanoscale level for the first time and are compared with AFM images of mammalian gelatins. Both annular pores with diameters averaging 118 nm and spherical ag- gregates with an average diameter of 267 nm were seen in the AFM images of fish gelatin. From the AFM images, we propose that the structures formed were determined by whether the solution penetrated into the gelatin molecules evenly or not during hydrolysis. A scheme for the formation of annular pores and spherical aggregates is proposed. Keywords: atomic force microscopy (AFM), catfish, fish skins, gelatin, nanostructure, nanotechnology Introduction Gelatin has a wide range of applications in the food, pharma-ceutical, and photographic industries. Most of the available gelatins are obtained from the hydrolysis of mammalian collagen. However, gelatin from fish skins has been attracting more inter- est in recent years because of safety, economic, religious, and en- vironmental considerations (Cho and others 2006). Understanding and then improving the physical properties of fish gelatin is im- portant for increasing its utilization. A number of studies dis- cuss the physical propertie