Validation of a reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic method for the quantification of primary proteolysis during cheese maturation

Abstract

A new fast and reliable reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic method is proposed for quantifying all the major casein fractions during cheese proteolysis as an alternative to more complex methodologies. Excellent separation of the caseins, para-κ-casein (ρ-κ-CN), αs1-casein (αs1-CN), αs1-I-casein (αs1-I-CN), αs2-casein (αs2-CN), and β-casein (β-CN) was achieved, in terms of linearity, reproducibility, repeatability, accuracy and certified standard recovery. Validation by quantification of semihard and Maasdam-style cheeses gave comparable results for ρ-κ-CN, β-CN and αs-casein (αs-CN) to published data for both urea–polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and capillary electrophoresis.