Lactoferrin Production from Bovine Milk or Cheese Whey

Abstract

Today, the industrial scale production of lactoferrin is carried out in one step by extraction from bovine milk or whey. As the role of lactoferrin in the milk is to protect the liquid against the bacterial contamination binding the lipopolysaccharides (LPS) of those bacteria, it is not surprising that the lactoferrin extracted from milk is covered by bacterial LPS, losing the most part of its biological activities. It is absolutely crucial that the production of Lactoferrin consists to a two steps process. The first step consists to extract from milk or from whey a solution that we called lactenin which contains different molecules including lactoferrin, lactoperoxidase, angiogenin and some other minor components. The second step consists to purify the lactoferrin from the other components including the LPS. Only under such conditions, we could recuperate a high level pure molecule with all its biological activities as it is not done actually.