CHARACTERIZATION OF FOOD PROTEINS BY CAPILLARY ELECTROPHORESIS

A simple analytical method for characterization of food proteins by capillary electrophoresis (CE) has been developed. Major proteins in chicken eggs and cow's milk are characterized and can be quantitated by the CE technique. Egg white proteins are well resolved while the yolk shows a substantially more complex protein separation pattern than that in the egg white. Caseins and whey proteins in fresh milk were resolved by CE in a similar buffer system. Separation of both milk and egg proteins was performed reliably and reproducibly in an untreated fused-silica column, 25 cm x 20 mu m I.D. Diluted egg or milk samples can be directly loaded on an automated instrument with on-line injection, detection and real-time data analysis in less than 10 min.