The regulatory classification of dairy products has significant implications for international trade and labeling compliance.Mascarpone,a high-fat used in culinary applications,occupies a regulatory grey area.This stu...The regulatory classification of dairy products has significant implications for international trade and labeling compliance.Mascarpone,a high-fat used in culinary applications,occupies a regulatory grey area.This study employed a comprehensive proteomic approach to determine whether mascarpone meets the molecular and compositional criteria for cheese.Proteins from two mascarpone samples were separated by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis(SDS-PAGE)and analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry(HPLC-MS/MS),targetingκ-casein,its rennet-derived fragment para-κ-casein,and the whey proteins-to-caseins ratio.Intact proteins were also analyzed by HPLC-MS.Our results showed thatκ-casein remained intact,while para-κ-casein was undetectable in mascarpone samples.Furthermore,the high whey proteins-to-casein ratio reflected the absence of a drainage step typical of curd formation.These findings have been further confirmed by analyzing proteins from four additional commercial samples of mascarpone in comparison with mozzarella and primo sale cheese,as examples of rennet-coagulated dairy products.Data provide evidence that mascarpone lacks key biochemical markers of cheesemaking,supporting its classification as a thermally stabilized acidified dairy emulsion rather than a true cheese.This study highlights the usefulness of proteomic markers for the accurate classification of dairy products.展开更多
基金financed by the European Union ELIXIRxNextGenEU through the Italian Ministry of University and Research under the project:"Consolidation of the Italian Infrastructure for Omics and Bioinformatics"ElixirxNextGenIT(Investment PNRRM4C2-I3.1,Project IR_0000010,CUP B53C22001800006).
文摘The regulatory classification of dairy products has significant implications for international trade and labeling compliance.Mascarpone,a high-fat used in culinary applications,occupies a regulatory grey area.This study employed a comprehensive proteomic approach to determine whether mascarpone meets the molecular and compositional criteria for cheese.Proteins from two mascarpone samples were separated by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis(SDS-PAGE)and analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry(HPLC-MS/MS),targetingκ-casein,its rennet-derived fragment para-κ-casein,and the whey proteins-to-caseins ratio.Intact proteins were also analyzed by HPLC-MS.Our results showed thatκ-casein remained intact,while para-κ-casein was undetectable in mascarpone samples.Furthermore,the high whey proteins-to-casein ratio reflected the absence of a drainage step typical of curd formation.These findings have been further confirmed by analyzing proteins from four additional commercial samples of mascarpone in comparison with mozzarella and primo sale cheese,as examples of rennet-coagulated dairy products.Data provide evidence that mascarpone lacks key biochemical markers of cheesemaking,supporting its classification as a thermally stabilized acidified dairy emulsion rather than a true cheese.This study highlights the usefulness of proteomic markers for the accurate classification of dairy products.
