Lutein is a carotenoid which has high antioxidant activity and remarkable protection function on the eye. Unfortunately， it is difficult to play the role as an effective functional component because of its instability， poor solubility in water， and low intestinal absorption rate. In this work， zein was glycosylated with chitosan oligosaccharide by the Maillard reaction to prepare zein/chitosan oligosaccharide (COS) conjugates (MDZ) to improve the encapsulation and delivery properties to lutein. Optimum preparation process conditions and characterization of lutein-loaded MDZ nanoparticles (MDZ-LUT) were investigated. The results revealed that the optimal preparation conditions were: the mass concentration of lutein was 100 μg/mL， the mass ratio of zein to COS was 1 ∶ 3， temperature was 91 ℃， and the time was 92.30 min， the encapsulation rate of MDZ-LUT reached (88.79±0.37)%. The MDZ-LUT had a smaller particle size (310.73±5.31) nm， and better polydispersity (polydispersion index PDI 0.23±0.02). The results of FTIR suggested that lutein could be combined and encapsulated better by Maillard-modified zein. Furthermore， the simulated gastrointestinal digestion and antioxidant results showed that the digestive stability and free radical scavenging activity capacity of lutein in MDZ-LUT increased significantly. These findings indicated that the zein/COS nanoparticles obtained by the Maillard reaction might be an efficient and promising delivery system to encapsulate and protect bioactive lutein compounds.