Effect of ultrasound on the interaction between (−)-epicatechin gallate and bovine serum albumin in a model wine

Ultrasound is considered as a potential novel technique for improving the quality of some wines. In this paper, a model wine firstly was constructed with the standards of (−)-epicatechin gallate (ECG) and bovine serum albumin (BSA) as target compounds. Then, the experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of ultrasonic irradiation on the binding properties between ECG and BSA including quenching mechanism, binding parameters, binding forces, energy transfer distance and conformational changes determined by spectral analysis. The results indicate that ultrasound definitely has some regular effects on the binding interaction of BSA and ECG, and can induced the conformation variation of BSA in the simulated wine, which may suggest that the ultrasound might be employed to modify the wine organoleptic property by regulating the interaction between phenolic compounds and proteins from the autolysis of yeasts, since they are similar to the standards of ECG and BSA, respectively.