Profiling proteins in nutraceutical formulations: characterization of the constituents

Abstract

Several nutraceutical preparations containing proteins, amino acids and other small molecules are nowadays present on the market. In this work we propose NMR spectroscopy such as (1)H NMR, (1)H-(1)H TOCSY and DOSY for their constituents characterization, identification and profiling, comparing these results with those obtained by electrophoretic technique such as SDS-PAGE. The (1)H NMR spectroscopy was applied for measurements of the amino acids and other small compounds added from the manufacturer. Further the autocorrelation function obtained from the one dimensional spectrum was used without the complete assignment of the resonances of the NMR spectrum of proteins for the evaluation of the folding quality and stability. Finally the DOSY NMR technique was performed on the samples for the characterization of the mean molecular weight range of proteins. All this features considered together create an important set of data useful for the evaluation of the protein profiling and the characterization of such formulations.

Keywords: Milk whey proteins; NMR; Nutraceutical; Protein profiling.