Danish Scientists Achieve Phosphorylation of Animal-Free Casein, Paving the Way for Better Dairy Alternatives
While several companies and research teams have now developed animal-free caseins using precision fermentation, an important part of the process has previously been missing. To be used in products such as cheese alternatives, caseins need to undergo a process called phosphorylation, where phosphate groups are added to them. This allows the caseins to bind to calcium compounds, forming particles called micelles. Previous attempts to achieve the phosphorylation of animal-free caseins have been unsuccessful, but in a new study from the Technical University of Denmark, researchers have successfully produced phosphorylated caseins in Escherichia coli bacteria. An alternative phosphomimetic strategy has also been developed by substituting serine residues with aspartate to mimic phosphorylation. “Transformative breakthrough” The properties of the resulting caseins were found to be comparable to …
