The LPS Whey protein refinery
The ChimerAds technology enable cost-efficient manufacture of all of the major whey proteins in individual fractions of high purity and high functionality
Certain milk proteins have, when isolated in relatively pure form, many high value applications in the food and health care industries.
Lactoferrin is one prominent example of a high value antimicrobial milk protein, which commands a market value about 50-100 times higher than that of the bulk protein. Still, most of these exceptionally highly priced proteins are not generally produced by the dairy industry. Mainstream production is dominated by bulk whey protein concentrates (WPC) and whey protein isolates (WPI), which today are commodity products sold in a highly competitive market.
The lack of selectivity and frequent yield losses associated with the use of classical membrane filtration techniques for individual protein separations are well known to the dairy industry. With our ChimerAds technology, efficient and high yield separation of all the different whey proteins is now possible, yet always in integrated solutions with membrane filtration for concentration and recycling of water in the process.
Example from our pipeline:
ChimerAds separation of whey proteins into high-grade alpha-lactalbumin and beta-lactalbumin enriched WPI
By virtue of the non-destructive ChimerAds technology, we can isolate a substantially native alpha-lactalbumin protein (see lane 2 of the SDS-PAGE pictured). Our alpha-lactalbumin product is highly enriched and practically devoid of low molecular weight compounds, carbohydrates, lipids and most of the other whey proteins (the remaining non-alpha protein bands in the alpha-lactalbumin are primarily beta-lactoglobulin which may be further removed in a subsequent polishing step, if need be).
In addition to the conservation of functionality, the method offers very high yields, which is witnessed by the only slight amount of alpha-lactalbumin present in the enriched beta-lactoglobulin product (lane 3).
SDS-PAGE: Lane 1: Sweet whey, Lane 2: alpha-lactalbumin product, Lane 3: beta-lactoglobulin enriched product
The beta-lactoglobulin fraction (lane 3) is a highly functional food protein ingredient. The immunoglobulins and lactoferrin present may be isolated as individual proteins in a subsequent polishing step.
