Effect of high pressure on the antimicrobial activity and secondary structure of the bacteriocin nisin

The combination of nisin and high pressure (HP) can be use at an industrial scale to inactivate bacteria. Nisin is allowed as a food additive (E234) and can be added at a final concentration ranging from 120 to 500 IU/g, depending on the product. In this work, we showed that HP can induce a significant reduction of nisin activity (-22.5% at pH 2.8 and -49.9% at pH 6.1). Therefore, this activity loss could be taken into account to manage the final nisin concentration in HP-treated food products.