Water-soluble prolamin, preparation thereof, and uses thereof for food-grade application including prolamin compositions combining prolamin and DNA taggants
A water-soluble prolamin composition, such as a zein composition, and methods for producing the same. A method for tagging items comprising applying a plurality of non-coding DNA tags in a prolamin composition, such as a zein composition, wherein the selection of the particular taggants corresponds with a binary or nonbinary code sequence containing information about the tagged items.
1. A composition comprising prolamin and [1,3]-propanediol.
2. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the prolamin comprises zein.
3. The composition of claim 2 , wherein the zein comprises zein nanoparticles.
4. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the composition is essentially free of ethanol.
5. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the composition further comprises a surfactant.
6. The composition of claim 5 , wherein the surfactant comprises surfactin.
7. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the composition is in an aqueous solution.
8. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the composition further comprises cyclodextrin.
9. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the composition further comprises casein.
10. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the composition further comprises one or more stabilizers.
11. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the composition is a powder.
12. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the composition further comprises a DNA taggant set and the DNA taggant set comprises a unique combination of a plurality of DNA sequences.
13. A method of preparing a composition, the method comprising:
a) obtaining a first solution comprising prolamin and [1,3]-propanediol;
b) obtaining a second solution comprising water; and
c) mixing the first solution with the second solution to prepare the composition.
14. The method of claim 13 , further comprising mixing the prolamin and the [1,3]-propanediol at a first elevated temperature to form the first solution.
15. The method of claim 13 , wherein the prolamin of the first solution comprises zein, and the second solution further comprises cyclodextrin, surfactant, and casein, in an aqueous carrier solution.
16. The method of claim 13 , further comprising mixing the prolamin with a surfactant in the [1,3]-propanediol at a first elevated temperature to form the first solution.
17. The method of claim 16 , wherein the first elevated temperature is a temperature between 90 and 115° C.
18. The method of claim 13 , further comprising adding a surfactant to zein and [1,3]-propanediol to obtain the first solution.
19. The method of claim 13 , further comprising adding DNA to the first solution before adding the first solution to the second solution.
20. The method of claim 19 , wherein the DNA comprises a unique combination of a plurality of DNA sequences.