Maillard induced glycation behaviour of individual milk proteins

This paper set out to differentiate the Maillard induced glycation reactivity of individual milk proteins using different saccharides under well-defined reaction conditions. α-Lactalbumin, β-lactoglobulin and β-casein were incubated with mono-, di- and trisaccharides in the dry state under standardised buffered conditions and glycation was expressed relative to the available reactive groups per protein (DG). Protein reactivity, described by the DG_max and initial speed of glycation (v), followed the same order for each protein-saccharide incubation: α-lactalbumin > β-lactoglobulin ≫ β-casein. Glycation of whey proteins by different monosaccharides was double that of β-casein. Differences in DG between whey proteins and β-casein decreased with increased saccharide size. A two-fold difference was found for glycation in the presence of the dimers lactose and maltose for β-casein but not for the whey proteins. The percentage of glycated lysines increased with increased lysine to protein size ratio.