ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Food Sci. Technol.
Sec. Food and Soft Materials
This article is part of the Research TopicMicroimaging in Food Science: Techniques, Applications, and Future TrendsView all 3 articles
Elucidating Polymorphic Nanofibril - Anthocyanin Interactions Through Multimodal Physicochemical Analysis and AFM Imaging for the Design of Stable Food Colorants
Provisionally accepted
- 1Leibniz-Institut fur Lebensmittel-Systembiologie an der Technischen Universitat Munchen, Freising, Germany
- 2Faculty of Engineering, Department of Food Engineering, Necmettin Erbakan University, Konya, Türkiye
- 3TUM Junior Fellow, TUM School of Life Sciences, Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany
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The stability of natural food pigments such as anthocyanins remains a key challenge for their application in food systems. Here, we investigated the potential use of protein nanofibrils as scaffolds to enhance anthocyanin stability, using Hibiscus sabdariffa extracts copigmented with pea and whey protein nanofibrils of distinct morphologies (linear and curly). Copigmented systems were systematically characterized through thermal, spectral, and nanoscale imaging analyses. Linear nanofibrils provided a more favorable environment for anthocyanin binding than curly fibrils, with pea nanofibrils inducing stronger spectral shifts, whereas whey nanofibrils offered superior pigment stabilization and thermal resistance. Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) revealed that copigmentation induced distinct morphological rearrangements of the nanofibrils, underscoring the critical role of fibril polymorphism in pigment–protein interactions. These findings establish nanofibrillated proteins as versatile scaffolds for stabilizing natural pigments and providing a mechanistic framework for designing more stable and functional food colorant systems.
Keywords: anthocyanin copigmentation, Atomic forcemicroscopy, FTIR, linear and curly nanofibrils, Polymorph
Received: 25 Aug 2025; Accepted: 10 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Karanth, Eyiz, Aydin, Tontul and Koehler. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Ismail Tontul
Melanie Koehler
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