Short communication: Caseins and α-lactalbumin content of camel milk (Camelus dromedarius) determined by capillary electrophoresis

摘要

Camel milk has unique physical, nutritional, and technologicalproperties when compared with other milks,especially bovine. Because proteins confer many of theproperties of milk and its products, this study aimedto determine the proteins of camel milk, their correlations,and relative distribution. Raw milk samples werecollected from 103 dromedary camels in the morningand evening. Capillary electrophoresis results showedwide variation in the concentrations (g/L) of proteinsbetween samples as follows: α-lactalbumin, 0.3 to 2.9;α_(S1)-casein, 2.4 to 10.3; α_(S2)-casein, 0.3 to 3.9; β-casein,5.5 to 29.0; κ-casein, 0.1 to 2.4; unknown casein protein1, 0.0 to 3.4; and unknown casein protein 2, 0.0 to 4.6.The range in percent composition of the 4 caseins wereas follows: α_(S1), 12.7 to 35.3; α_(S2), 1.8 to 20.8; β, 42.3 to77.4; and κ, 0.6 to 17.4. The relative proportion of α_(S1)-,α_(S2)-, β-, and κ-caseins in camel milk (26:4:67:3, wt/wt)differed from that of bovine milk (38:10:36:12, wt/wt).This difference might explain the dissimilarity betweenthe 2 milks with respect to technical and nutritionalproperties.