Vol. 12, Issue 9 (2023)

Author(s):
Dr. Rajanna M, Dr. HM Jayaprakasha and Akshaykumar

Abstract:
Study of Physico-chemical characterization of various fractions of cow, Buffalo and goat milk casein such as α, β and k-casein. Buffalo milk is nutritionally rich and has many health benefits. Inspite of that, half of buffalo milk produced in India is utilised for production of various dairy products. In spite of several positive effects of goat milk on human health, Goat milk is not being used in chhana and channa based sweets. Therefore, in this investigation the attempt has been made to make use of the milk by suitable modification through enzymatic hydrolysis so as to induce desirable changes in the protein conformation leading to improvement in techno-functional properties of milk protein. Casein obtained from cow, buffalo and goat milk were fractionated by urea solubility method and the fractions were quantified. The significant effect of source on protein yield and fractions of caseins was observed. Higher yield of α -casein (54.31%) was observed in cow milk than buffalo milk (48.95%) and lower yield (20.36%) was found in goat milk. Amongst the three species, highest per cent of β casein was noted in goat milk (54.05%) followed by buffalo (36.03%) and cow milk (34.14%). The highest molecular weight in respect of α-casein (23.82 kDa) was observed in cow milk followed by goat milk (23.61KDa) and buffalo milk (22.74 kDa). Whereas the molecular weight of β casein in respect of cow milk was 24.31, and it was 23.84 for buffalo milk and 23.82 for goat milk. There was no wide variation in molecular weight of k-casein irrespective of source of milk. The molecular weight of k- casein varied between 19.15 to 19.38kDa.