Study on saltiness sensing during oral processing of dry-cured pork base on salivary proteomics

Abstract

Recently, the concept of low-salt and healthy diet has been widely accepted, while the market recognition of low-salt meat products is generally inferior due to their inability to satisfy the oral pleasure of consumers. Therefore, to investigate the role of saliva in saltiness during oral processing of chewing high-salt dry-cured pork, a subset of 3 male subjects with high salt-sensitivity were selected to partake this study. Cooked dry-cured pork (5% salt added) as chewed and held in the oral cavity without swallowing for four different chewing stages during oral processing. Saliva from the 3 subjects was collected and analyzed for salivary proteomics by Data Independent Acquisition (DIA) combined with food oral processing methods. According to the analysis of human proteome (H.sapiens, UP000005640), the abundance of RAC1(RAS-related C3 botulinum toxin substrate 1) and calmodulin-like 3 (CALML 3) was first found to be related to the change of saltiness sensing during oral processing. Moreover, oral chewing leads to upregulation of RAC1 protein, which leads to positive regulation of protein kinase B signaling, ultimately leading to increased serine-type endopeptidase activity and salt perception.