JPH0614857B2 - Taste modifier spray - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial Field of Application] The present invention relates to Curculigo latif.
The present invention relates to a taste-modifying agent spray capable of efficiently and simply ingesting a taste-modifying substance comprising a fruit of (olia) or a dried product thereof or a curculin-containing component obtained therefrom.

[Conventional technology]

As a substance that acts on the receptor membrane of the tongue to change the taste of food (taste modifier), it has been conventionally made to feel sweetness when it is eaten with a sweet substance or when it is eaten with a sweet substance. Gymnema Sylvester (Gym)
Gymnemic acid contained in leaves of nema sylvstre) and jujube
(Ziziphus jujuba) Dijifin contained in leaves is known, and as a substance that makes you feel sweetness when eating a sour substance in the same manner as above, Miracle Fruit (Synsepulm)
Durifica) is known to contain mulaculin.

Also, Curculigo latifolia
Is a plant belonging to the genus Asteraceae or the genus Asteraceae that grows naturally in West Malaysia, southern Thailand, etc., and its fruits are known to be edible and have an appetite enhancing effect.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention]

The above-mentioned miraculin has a taste-modifying function as described above, but has a problem of stability and has not been put to practical use as a taste-modifying substance.

Also, the fruit of Curculigo latifolia is not known for properties other than the above.

The present inventors have found that after eating the fruit of Curculigo latifolia, eating and drinking sour substances or water, sweetness is felt, and as a result of diligent research on what the inducer is, the fruit of Curculigo latifolia ( It has been found that a specific protein (named curculin) contained in (Fruit) is an inducer that causes sweetness (Japanese Patent Application No. 63-
153143).

Further, the present inventors, as a result of further diligent research on the taste-modifying effect of curculin, that there is a taste-modifying effect even when the above fruits are eaten at the same time with the sour substance or water, and only for the sour substance and water. In addition, it has been found that it has an effect of making sweet taste even for bitter substances, astringent substances and astringent substances.

However, the fruit of Curculigo latifolia is a small egg-shaped one having a protrusion of 1 cm in diameter and 1 g in weight and having an upper part even at the time of completely ripening, and it is very difficult to harvest a large amount.

Therefore, in order to commercially utilize a curculigo latifolia fruit or a dried product thereof or a curculin-containing component obtained from them as a taste-modifying substance, the taste-modifying substance should be efficiently ingested to minimize its use amount. A means to suppress it is desired.

The present inventors have diligently studied the taste-modifying effect of a taste-modifying substance consisting of a fruit of Curculigo latifolia or a dried product thereof or a curculin-containing component obtained therefrom, and as a result, the taste-modifying effect is mainly on the upper surface of the tongue. It was found to be expressed on the surface of. Further, it was found that the taste modifying effect can be obtained by applying only a small amount of the taste modifying substance to the upper surface of the tongue. Furthermore, the present inventors confirmed that 0.1 g of a crushed fruit of Curculigo latifolia and 0.01 mg of curculin extracted and purified from the fruit have the above-mentioned taste-modifying effect.

However, even if the absolute amount of the taste-modifying substance is suspended in water for taste modification, the taste-modifying effect cannot be obtained. Further, the method of using the taste-modifying substance suspended in water,
Since the taste-modifying activity is mainly determined by the concentration rather than the absolute amount of the taste-modifying substance, a considerably large amount of the taste-modifying substance is required as compared with the method of directly rubbing the taste-modifying substance onto the tongue with a finger, which is inefficient. . Furthermore, a method of directly administering the taste-modifying substance to the oral cavity without suspending it in water, moving the tongue in the oral cavity, and contacting the upper surface of the tongue to modify the taste is also a method in which saliva obstructs the It is inefficient compared to the method of rubbing it directly into the tongue. Furthermore, the method of rubbing the taste-modifying substance directly into the tongue with a finger is troublesome, unhygienic, and difficult to perform in public.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a means for efficiently and simply ingesting a taste-modifying substance comprising a curculigo latifolia fruit or a dried product thereof or a curculin-containing component obtained from them. To provide.

[Means for Solving the Problems]

The present inventors have conducted extensive studies to achieve the above object, and as a result, encapsulated a taste-modifying agent containing a taste-modifying substance comprising a curculigo latifolia fruit or a dried product thereof or a curculin-containing component obtained from them into a spray. However, it was found that the taste modifier can be brought into contact with the upper surface of the tongue in an appropriate amount and uniformly by directly injecting it onto the upper surface of the tongue.

The present invention has been made based on the above findings, wherein a taste-modifying agent containing a taste-modifying substance comprising a fruit of Curculigo latifolia or a dried product thereof or a curculin-containing component obtained therefrom is encapsulated. A chemical spray is provided.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail.

The type of spray that encloses the taste modifier is not particularly limited, but it is preferable to use a compressed carbon dioxide gas to obtain the injection pressure. This is because, in addition to safety, the effect of carbon dioxide gas is recognized in taste modification. Although the detailed principle is unknown, it is presumed that carbon dioxide has a function of increasing the effect of the taste modifier used in the present invention.

Further, as the form of the taste modifier, a powder of the taste modifier, a dispersion of the taste modifier in a curculin-insoluble liquid such as water, and a thriller of the taste modifier, and 0.01 Examples thereof include those in which a taste-modifying substance is dissolved in a curculin-soluble liquid such as M or more saline.

The content of the taste-modifying substance in the taste-modifying agent is usually
0.001 to 1% by weight is preferable as pure curculin.

Further, as the fruit of Curculigo latifolia and the dried product thereof, which constitute the taste-modifying substance used in the present invention,
Since the skin and seeds of the fruit do not contain curculin, it is preferable to use those without the skin and seeds (flesh and dried pulp).

The dried product of Curculigo latifolia fruit is not particularly limited in its drying means, and examples thereof include sun dried product, hot air dried product, and freeze dried product such as freeze dried pulp.

The fruit of Curculigo latifolia and the dried product thereof are not particularly limited in the form of use, but they are usually crushed, crushed, made into a paste or the like and used.

Further, as a component containing curculin obtained from the above-mentioned Curculigo latifolia fruit or a dried product thereof,
Examples include curculin extracted from the fruit or a dried product thereof, or a residue obtained by appropriately treating the fruit or a dried product thereof to separate and remove components not containing curculin. The curculin extracted from the fruit or its dried product is not limited to the purification purity at all, and in addition to high purity, it may be one containing a large amount of components other than curculin, or the extract contains other components. It may be a mixture of.

The curculin extraction method is not necessarily limited,
From the fruit of Curculigo latifolia or its dried products
Extraction with an aqueous solution of a salt having a concentration of 0.01 M or more is preferable, and examples of the salt include sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium or ammonium hydrochloride, sodium, potassium, magnesium or ammonium phosphate, and sodium. , Potassium, magnesium or ammonium carbonate, sodium,
Magnesium, calcium or ammonium sulfate or sulfite, sodium or potassium nitrate or nitrite, sodium or calcium lactate, alum, baked alum, sodium acetate, sodium or potassium pyrophosphate, sodium or calcium propionate Salt, sodium benzoate, fumaric acid-sodium, sodium polyacrylate, etc. are used.

Then, a typical example of the method for extracting curculin with the above aqueous solution of salt is as follows.

After adding an aqueous solution of salt such as salt to the fruit of Curculigo latifolia or its dried product and homogenizing, filtration,
It can be extracted by centrifugation, etc., but since curculin is contained in the water-insoluble part of the fruit pulp of Curculigo latifolia, it is homogenized by adding water to the fruit or a dried product thereof, and washed thoroughly with water to dissolve in water. After removing a part, it is preferable to extract the residue with an aqueous solution of the above salt, because curculin can be obtained in high purity.

If the aqueous salt solution used for extraction has a concentration of less than 0.01 M, curculin cannot be sufficiently extracted.
An aqueous solution of salt with a concentration of 0.01 M or more is required. On the other hand, if the concentration is too high, desalting after extraction takes time, so 0.1-1.0 is required due to the balance between extraction efficiency and purification after extraction.
An aqueous solution of salt at a concentration of M is preferred.

By desalting and drying the extract with an aqueous solution of the above salt, a curculin-containing substance that can be sufficiently put into practical use can be obtained. By further purifying the extract by subjecting it to ion exchange with CM-Sepharose and HPLC using a gel column, The purity can be increased and then desalted and dried to obtain pure curculin. Of course, in addition to the above-mentioned purification method, the curculin purity can be increased by fractionating the extract solution by a known protein purification method such as salting out, solvent precipitation or the like.

As a specific example of curculin thus obtained,
A protein having a molecular weight of about 12,500 daltons, an amino acid residue number of 97, and an isoelectric point of 7.1 is mentioned. This protein has a molecular weight of about 26,000 daltons (dimer).
Exists as. The amino acid composition of the protein is shown in Table 1 below, and the protein contains a relatively large amount of aspartic acid, leucine and glycine.

[Examples] Hereinafter, the present invention will be specifically described with reference to Examples.

Example 1 The skin and seeds were removed from the fruit of Curculigo latifolia, and 4 times the amount of water was added to the remaining pulp portion to obtain 10,000 r.p.m.
The mixture was homogenized with ice cooling for 2 hours at pm (using Exel Auto Homogenizer DX-3 manufactured by Nippon Seiki Co., Ltd.).
It was then centrifuged at 10000G for 30 minutes,
The precipitate was removed. This precipitate was freeze-dried and the dried product was further crushed in a mortar to obtain a taste-modifying substance. To 50 g of this taste-modifying substance, 30 ml of water was added and thoroughly kneaded in a mortar to obtain a taste-modifying agent in the form of a slurry. This taste modifier was enclosed in a pump spray to obtain the taste modifier spray of the present invention. If you push the pump part of this spray once,
0.1 g of taste modifier was stably ejected each time. When this spray was pushed toward the upper surface of the tongue and 5 ml of 0.02 M citric acid aqueous solution was contained in the mouth, a slight sourness and good sweetness were felt.

Example 2 0.005 g of pure curculin obtained by the following method was added to 0.5M
It was dissolved in 100 ml of saline to obtain a taste modifier. This taste modifier was enclosed in a spray together with carbon dioxide gas to obtain a jet pressure. The spray quantity of this spray is almost stable every second
From 0.9g to 1.0g. After spraying this spray toward the upper surface of the tongue for 1 second and then drinking water, a good sweetness was felt.

[Production of pure curculin]

To 30 g of freeze-dried pulp of the fruit of Curculigo latifolia, 600 ml of water was added, homogenized with a mixer for 2 minutes, and then centrifuged at 10,000 rpm for 30 minutes. After removing the supernatant (colored), 600 ml of water was added to the residue, and homogenization, centrifugation, and removal of the supernatant were repeated 4 times until the supernatant was not colored, to obtain a residue.

Next, 250 ml of 0.5 M NaCl aqueous solution was added to this residue, and the mixture was homogenized for 2 minutes with a mixer and then suction-filtered. After collecting the filtrate, 250 ml of 0.5 M NaCl aqueous solution was further added to the residue, homogenization and suction filtration were carried out, and the filtrate was collected.

Next, the filtrates were combined and then centrifuged at 30,000 rpm for 1 hour to obtain a supernatant (curcumin crude extract).

500 ml of this curculin crude extract was subjected to ultrafiltration to obtain 3
After concentrating to 0 ml, 0.01 ml of a phosphate buffer (pH 6.8) (70 ml) was added to this concentrated liquid to make 100 ml, and CM-Sepharose column chromatography was performed using a sample solution [CM-Sepharose CL- 6B. Equilibrated with 0.01M phosphate buffer (pH 6.8). ]. The sample solution was allowed to flow down on a column having a bed volume of 130 ml and a bed height of 17 cm and washed with 0.01 M phosphate buffer (pH 6.8), and then 0-1.0 M NaCl / 0.01 M phosphate buffer (pH 6.
Elution was performed with a gradient of 8), and active fractions were collected.

After concentrating this active fraction by ultrafiltration, HPL using a gel column (TSK gel G3000SW manufactured by Toyo Soda)
C. and eluted with 0.01 M phosphate buffer (pH 6.8).

Curculin was eluted as one sharp peak with strong activity.

This active fraction was desalted and freeze-dried to obtain pure curculin.

〔The invention's effect〕

According to the taste-modifying agent spray of the present invention, by directly injecting the taste-modifying agent toward the upper surface of the tongue, a taste-modifying substance comprising a fruit of Curculigo latifolia or a dried product thereof or a curculin-containing component obtained from them can be obtained. , It can be ingested efficiently and easily so that the effect can be obtained.

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued Front Page (72) Kenji Ikeda 7-35 Higashiohisa Arakawa-ku, Tokyo Within Asahi Denka Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Masako Miyake 7-35 Higashiohisa Arakawa-ku, Tokyo Asahi Denka Kogyo Co., Ltd.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A taste-modifying agent spray, which comprises a taste-modifying agent containing a taste-modifying substance comprising a curculigo latifolia fruit or a dried product thereof or a curculin-containing component obtained therefrom.