A low molecular weight fraction of wheat bran aqueous extract acts as a promoter of fused nanospheres after proteolysis with V8

Protein-rich wheat bran aqueous extract was fractionated by size exclusion chromatography. Each of the chromatographic fractions was hydrolyzed with V8 protease in a reaction medium containing Ca2+. Both the fractions and the hydrolysates were characterized physically and chemically. The objective was to obtain information about which components are involved in the formation of nanoparticles, reported in previous works. Six chromatographic fractions from 0.3 to 102.8 kDa were obtained. The results of chemical characterization, electrophoresis, UV-Vis spectroscopy, and infrared spectroscopy revealed the presence of protein-polysaccharide complexes in four of the fractions. Fused nanospheres at different angles were found by scanning electron microscopy after proteolysis of a 15.1 kDa fraction. It was proposed that such binding could provide sites to form branched nanostructures.