Cereal Chem. 79(1):1–18 Corn is the largest and most important agricultural commodity in America. Zein, one of the components in corn, has long been investigated for uses other than food and feed. Zein is a unique and complex material, and it is one of the few cereal proteins extracted in a relatively pure form. Today, because of environmental concerns, interest in zein utilization is again gro...

Zein is a biodegradable and biocompatible material extracted from renewable resources; it comprises almost 80% of the whole protein content in corn. This review highlights and describes some zein and zein-based materials, focusing on biomedical applications. It was demonstrated in this review that the biodegradation and biocompatibility of zein are key parameters for its uses in the food-packin...

Cereal Chem. 88(2):159–173 Corn can be fractioned to produce starch, fiber, oil, and protein in relatively pure forms. The corn kernel contains 9–12% protein, but half of this is an industrially useful protein called zein. Dry milled corn (DMC), corn gluten meal (CGM), and distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS) are all coproducts from corn that contain zein and are used for zein extracti...

Cereal Chem. 88(4):356-362 A modified procedure for the extraction of α-zein from corn gluten meal was developed and compared against a commercial extraction method. The modification involved raising the concentration of alcohol in solvent and removing the precipitate by centrifugation. Five organic solvent mixtures were compared using the modified extraction procedure developed along with the ...

To improve the mechanical properties of zein films, a commercial white zein was reacted in glacial acetic acid (HAc) with glutaraldehyde (GDA) from 0.5 to 16% by weight based on the weight of zein. Amounts of 4% or higher GDA-modified zein, when cured in a closed system, generated a gel. That gel was insoluble in organic solvents known to solubilize zein. Zein solutions cast within a silicon ru...

The 72-kDa gelatinase/type IV collagenase, a metalloproteinase thought to play a role in metastasis and in angiogenesis, forms a noncovalent stoichiometric complex with the tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-2 (TIMP-2), a potent inhibitor of enzyme activity. To define the regions of the 72-kDa gelatinase responsible for TIMP-2 binding, a series of NH2- and COOH-terminal deletions of the enzy...

Cordyceps militaris 202 is a potential fungus for biotransformation zein, due to its various proteases, high tolerance and viability in nature. In this article, single factor experiment and response surface methodology were applied to optimize the liquid fermentation conditions and improve the ability of biotransformation zein. The optimized fermentation conditions were as follows: inoculum con...

Zein was investigated for use as an oral-drug delivery system by loading prednisolone into zein microparticles using coacervation. To investigate the adaptability of this method to other drugs, zein microparticles were loaded with hydrocortisone, which is structurally related to prednisolone; or mesalazine, which is structurally different having a smaller LogP and ionizable functional groups. I...

Purified dihydropyridine-sensitive calcium channels from rabbit transverse-tubule membranes consist of three noncovalently associated classes of subunits: alpha (167 kDa), beta (54 kDa), and gamma (30 kDa). Cleavage of disulfide bonds reveals two distinct alpha polypeptides and an additional component, delta. The alpha 1 subunit, a 175-kDa polypeptide that is not N-glycosylated, contains the di...