Ultrasound-induced structural changes of different milk fat globule membrane protein-phospholipids complexes and their effects on physicochemical and functional properties of emulsions

[Display omitted] •Ultrasound altered the secondary and tertiary structures of MFGMP in the complexes.•Ultrasonic pretreatment improved the stability and emulsification of emulsions.•The emulsions prepared by MPL-MFGMP showed better stability.•When ultrasonic condition was 300 W, 15 min, emulsion distribution was more uniform. Ultrasonic technology is a non-isothermal processing technology that can be used to modify the physicochemical properties of food ingredients. This study investigated the effects of ultrasonic time (5 min, 10 min, 15 min) and power (150 W,300 W,500 W) on the structural properties of three types of phospholipids composed of different fatty acids (milk fat globule membrane phospholipid (MPL), egg yolk lecithin (EYL), soybean lecithin (SL)) and milk fat globule membrane protein (MFGMP). We found that the ultrasound treatment changed the conformation of the protein, and the emulsions prepared by the pretreatment showed better emulsification and stability, the lipid droplets were also more evenly distributed. Meanwhile, the flocculation phenomenon of the lipid droplets was significantly improved compared with the non-ultrasonic emulsions. Compared with the three complexes, it was found that ultrasound had the most significant effect on the properties of MPL-MFGMP, and its emulsion state was the most stable. When the ultrasonic condition was 300 W, the particle size of the emulsion decreased significantly (from 441.50 ± 4.79 nm to 321.77 ± 9.91 nm) at 15 min, and the physical stability constants KE decreased from 14.49 ± 0.702 % to 9.4 ± 0.261 %. It can be seen that proper ultrasonic pretreatment can effectively improve the stability of the system. At the same time, the emulsification performance of the emulsion had also been significantly improved. While the accumulation phenomenon occurred when the ultrasonic power was 150 W and 500 W. These results showed that ultrasonic pretreatment had great potential to improve the properties of emulsions, and this study would provide a theoretical basis for the application of emulsifier in the emulsions.