Animal Plasma Proteins

Animal blood and plasma is an abundant by-product of industrial slaughterhouses which contain highly functional proteins for food applications. Animal plasma also contain a host of bioactive proteins and enzymes that have significant market opportunities for animal and human healthcare applications, including substitution of antibiotics in animal farming.

The functionalities of animal plasma proteins are well described and still this source of valuable components seems vastly underutilized due to the lack of efficient and mild separation processes that retain the functional integrity while providing high yields of each component at a relevant processing cost.

The LPS team employs many years of know-how in the field of plasma fractionation for the development of individual proteins from animal plasma – with an initial focus on porcine and bovine plasma proteins – including albumin, immunoglobulin, fibrinogen and transferrin.

Our immunoglobulin products are developed to provide maximum bioactivity, storage stability, ease-of-use and improved survival through passage of the gastric environment.

Our albumin products are developed to provide optimal functionality with a minimum of taste and color contributions to the final food products.

Our proprietary separation tehnology enables a very sharp separation of albumin and immunglobulin in a single step and with close to 100 % yield of each protein (Analysis: non-reduced SDS-PAGE).

Immunoglobulins

Immunoglobulins from animal plasma is a heterogeneous group of proteins which mainly contain the IgG, IgA and IgM immunoglobulins. These immune-defense proteins have been thoroughly documented to provide protection against infections, improve health and survival rate of newborn piglets and calves when administered orally during the first days and weeks of life and thus contribute to minimize the use of antibiotics (Hedegaard CJ et al, PLoS ONE 11(1): e0147373. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0147373 (2016)).

Albumin

Albumin is the dominant protein found in animal plasma constituting about 50 % of the total protein present. Albumin isolated from bovine and porcine is reported as a potential food ingredient with excellent functional properties such as gelling, emulsification, and foaming properties. It has been demonstrated that the purified albumin has a stronger functionality compared to the whole plasma and comparable or better than egg white protein (Ramos-Clamont, M.G. et al, Cienc. Tecnol. Aliment. 5(2) 105-111 (2006); Dolors Parés et al, Meat Science 96, 304-310, (2014)).