Charged Ultrafiltration Membranes Increase the Selectivity of Whey Protein Separations

Application of Ion Exchange and Adsorption Techniques for Separation of Whey Proteins from Bovine Milk

Background:

The world production of whey was estimated to be more than 200 million tons per year. Although whey is an important source of proteins with high nutritional value and biotechnological importance, it is still considered as a by-product of the dairy industry with low economic value due to low industrial exploitation. There are several challenges in the separation of whey proteins: low concentration, the complexity of the material and similar properties (pI, molecular mass) of some proteins.

Methods:

A narrative review of all the relevant papers on the present methodologies based on ion-exchange and adsorption principles for isolation of whey proteins, known to the authors, was conducted.

Results:

Traditional ion-exchange techniques are widely used for the separation and purification of the bovine whey proteins. These methodologies, based on the anion or cation chromatographic procedures, as well as combination of aforementioned techniques are still preferential methods for the isolation of the whey proteins on the laboratory scale. However, more recent research on ion exchange membranes for this purpose has been introduced, with promising potential to be applied on the pilot industrial scale. Newly developed methodologies based either on the ion-exchange separation (for example: simulated moving bed chromatography, expanded bed adsorption, magnetic ion exchangers, etc.) or adsorption (for example: adsorption on hydroxyapatite or activated carbon, or molecular imprinting) are promising approaches for scaling up of the whey proteins’ purification processes.

Conclusion:

Many procedures based on ion exchange are successfully implemented for separation and purification of whey proteins, providing protein preparations of moderate-to-high yield and satisfactory purity. However, the authors anticipate further development of adsorption-based methodologies for separation of whey proteins by targeting the differences in proteins’ structures rather than targeting the differences in molecular masses and pI. The complex composite multilayered matrices, including also inorganic components, are promising materials for simultaneous exploiting of the differences in the masses, pI and structures of whey proteins for the separation.

Biological, functional and nutritional properties of caseinomacropeptide from sweet whey

Bioactive peptides derived from bovine milk proteins have gained much attention due to their health promoting functions. All over the world, cheese industry generates high volumes of sweet whey that could be used as an alternative source of bioactive peptide in nutraceuticals and food industry. Caseinomacropeptide (CMP) is a bioactive peptide derived from κ-casein by the action of chymosin during cheese manufacturing. CMP consist of two forms which are glycosylated (gCMP) and non-glycosylated (aCMP). The predominant carbohydrate in gCMP is N-acetylneuraminic (sialic acid) which gives functional and biological properties to gCMP. Due to its unique composition and technological characteristics such as wide pH range solubility, emulsifying, gelling, and foaming ability, CMP has received special attention. Therefore, there is an increased interest in researches for isolation and concentration of CMP. However, the isolation and purification methods are not cost-effective. It would be easier to optimize the conditions for isolation, purification, and utilization of CMP in nutraceuticals and food industry through deeper understanding of the effective factors. In this review, the structure of CMP, biological activities, isolation, and purification methods, the factors affecting functional properties and application areas of CMP in food industry are discussed.

Recent Advancements of UF-Based Separation for Selective Enrichment of Proteins and Bioactive Peptides—A Review

Proteins are one of the primary building blocks that have significant functional properties to be applied in food and pharmaceutical industries. Proteins could be beneficial in their concentrated products or isolates, of which membrane-based filtration methods such as ultrafiltration (UF) encompass application in broad spectra of protein sources. More importantly, selective enrichment by UF is of immense interest due to the presence of antinutrients that may dominate their perspicuous bioactivities. UF process is primarily obstructed by concentration polarization and fouling; in turn, a trade-off between productivity and selectivity emerges, especially when pure isolates are an ultimate goal. Several factors such as operating conditions and membrane equipment could leverage those pervasive contributions; therefore, UF protocols should be optimized for each unique protein mixture and mode of configuration. For instance, employing charged UF membranes or combining UF membranes with electrodialysis enables efficient separation of proteins with a similar molecular weight, which is hard to achieve by the conventional UF membrane. Meanwhile, some proposed strategies, such as utilizing ultrasonic waves, tuning operating conditions, and modifying membrane surfaces, can effectively mitigate fouling issues. A plethora of advancements in UF, from their membrane material modification to the arrangement of new configurations, contribute to the quest to actualize promising potentials of protein separation by UF, and they are reviewed in this paper.

Fractionation of Glycomacropeptide from Whey Using Positively Charged Ultrafiltration Membranes

Fractionation of the bovine glycomacropeptide (GMP) from the other proteins in cheese whey was examined using ultrafiltration membranes surface modified to contain positively charged polymer brushes made of polyhexamethylene biguanide. By placing a strong positive charge on a 1000 kDa ultrafiltration membrane and adjusting the pH of whey close to the isoelectric point of GMP, a 14-fold increase in selectivity was observed compared to unmodified membranes. A one stage membrane system gave 90% pure GMP and a three-stage rectification system gave 97% pure GMP. The charged membrane was salt-tolerant up to 40 mS cm-1 conductivity, allowing fractionation of GMP directly from cheese whey without first lowering the whey conductivity by water dilution. Thus, similarly sized proteins that differed somewhat in isoelectric points and were 50⁻100 fold smaller than the membrane molecular weight cut-off (MWCO), were cleanly fractionated using charged ultrafiltration membranes without water addition. This is the first study to report on the use of salt-tolerant charged ultrafiltration membranes to produce chromatographically pure protein fractions from whey, making ultrafiltration an attractive alternative to chromatography for dairy protein fractionation.

Separating proteins with activated carbon

Activated carbon is applied to separate proteins based on differences in their size and effective charge. Three guidelines are suggested for the efficient separation of proteins with activated carbon. (1) Activated carbon can be used to efficiently remove smaller proteinaceous impurities from larger proteins. (2) Smaller proteinaceous impurities are most efficiently removed at a solution pH close to the impurity's isoelectric point, where they have a minimal effective charge. (3) The most efficient recovery of a small protein from activated carbon occurs at a solution pH further away from the protein's isoelectric point, where it is strongly charged. Studies measuring the binding capacities of individual polymers and proteins were used to develop these three guidelines, and they were then applied to the separation of several different protein mixtures. The ability of activated carbon to separate proteins was demonstrated to be broadly applicable with three different types of activated carbon by both static treatment and by flowing through a packed column of activated carbon.