Abstract
Copyright © 2025. Published by Elsevier Ltd.Foods with high-starch porous structures have a high glycemic index (GI), posing health risks. Replacing traditional starch networks with dietary fiber-based porous skeletons promotes a low-GI diet. Herein, regenerated silk fibroin (RSF) and polyphenol complex nanoparticles were embedded into the sodium alginate (SA) cryogel by covalent and noncovalent approaches. Nanoparticles were fabricated by covalent interactions between RSF and polyphenols (proanthocyanidin (PA) and quercetin (QUE)) using a bottom-up method under alkaline conditions. Heating and non-heating treatment on pre-solutions caused Maillard reactions and hydrogen bonding between nanoparticles and the SA matrix. The noncovalent embedding of RSF-PA nanoparticles greatly improved the mechanical properties of the cryogels, with the compressive strength increasing from 24.41 to 139.83 kPa. Cryogels with covalently embedded nanoparticles had higher polyphenol release rates, antioxidation, and antibacterial activities (11.2 mm of inhibition zone against S. aureus ). This work promotes the development of low GI functional diets from dietary fiber-based porous matrices.
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Elsevier