Gelation of casein micelles with different origins observed by spin-echo small-angle neutron scattering

Dairy production has a large impact on the environment. Cheese has one of the highest amounts of greenhouse gas emission and land use among protein rich food products [1]. We are proposing a novel way to produce dairy products, namely, we will use yeasts to express the different types of milk caseins and assemble them into micelles. To verify the possibility of assembling the individual components into micelles, we would like to compare the structural properties of skim milk with reconstituted casein micelles. Small-angle X-ray and neutron scattering has been shown to be a suitable method to describe the internal structure of casein micelles [2][3]. However, upon acidification the primer casein micelles form networks. The resulted particles are too big to investigate with classical small-angle scattering. Spin-echo small-angle neutron scattering (SESANS) has been shown to be a powerful method to investigate the structure of milk upon acidification [4]. We would like to set up a set of experiment of skim milk, reconstituted casein micelles and micelles assembled from its components and investigate the evolution of structure by decreasing the pH by the means of SESANS. References [1] Poore, J. et. al. (2018) 360(6392), 987-992. [2] Ingham, B. et. al. (2016) 12(33), 6937-6953. [3] Holt, C. et al. (2003) 213(2-3), 275-284 [4] Tromp, R. H. et. al (2007) 21(2), 154-158.