Role of actinidin in the hydrolysis of the cream milk proteins

Cream from milk is commonly used as the starting material of variety food products such as cream cheese, fat added cheeses, butter and buttermilk. The protein content of cream is only about 2% but strongly affects the quality of fat containing dairy products especially cheeses which are frequently characterized by an unsatisfactory texture. In this work, the suitability of the actinidin to function in a “fat-supplemented” environment was tested and the SDS–PAGE profile of cream treated with the enzyme was also analyzed. The results show that actinidin is able to degrade all the cream proteins to smaller than 29.0 kDa fragments suggesting a novel utilization as preparatory treatment in the production of milk derived products characterized by a reduced content of undesirable proteins.

► Actinidin is able to degrade all the cream proteins to small fragments. ► Actinidin efficiently reduce the size of the undesired MFGM proteins. ► Use of actinidin as pre-treatment for the production of milk derived products.