Linking Nutritional, Sensory, and Functional Quality in Plant-Based Proteins Through Structural Modification and Computational Insights

Growing concerns regarding the consumption of animal-based proteins have triggered a shift toward plant-based sources and their incorporation into food formulations. Although this shift is increasingly evident, the nutritional, sensory, and functional limitations of plant-based proteins still restrict their broader adoption, prompting research into strategies to overcome these challenges. On this basis, the manuscript addresses plant-based proteins from a broader perspective. First, it examines core challenges that limit the wider use of plant proteins, including essential amino acid deficiencies, low digestibility, the presence of anti-nutritional factors, and undesirable flavors. The physical, chemical, and biological techniques applied to cope with these limitations have been emphasized. A range of modification techniques are reviewed, highlighting their impacts on protein techno-functionality as well as the associated structural alterations. Finally, the manuscript reviews the use of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and molecular docking to investigate protein characteristics at the molecular level, highlighting recent developments and providing examples from the literature. In addition to commonly used experimental techniques, the use of computational tools aims to elucidate the structural changes that proteins undergo at both the micro- and macro-scale levels.