**3. Functional properties of polysaccharide-protein complexes related to food application**

Polysaccharide-protein complexes exhibit a wide range of interesting properties, such as surface activity to stabilize air-water or oil-water interfaces, viscosifying, and gelling properties etc. Viscosifying and gelling ability of polysaccharide-protein complexes help to obtain gel-like processed food products without any thermal treatment in the process. The interfacial properties of these complexes help to impart stability into the emulsion food products. Also, protein–polysaccharide complexes are able to encapsulate several active ingredients; hence they act as delivery systems for many bioactives or sensitive molecules in food formulations. These complexes are also known to vary bulk/interfacial structures, textures and shelf-life stability of the food colloids. In the following section we will discuss this polysaccharide-protein interaction in light of their functional properties.
