eng Science and Education Publishing Journal of Food and Nutrition Research 2333-1240 2022-09-14 10 9 600 607 10.12691/jfnr-10-9-3 JFNR20221093 article Rong JIA 1 Yuting LOU 1 Fuxin ZHANG 1 Yufang LIU 1 Weizhe WANG 1 Haishuai PENG 1 Yuanyuan HUI 1 Bini WANG biniwang@snnu.edu.cn 1 College of Food Engineering and Nutritional Science, Shaanxi Normal University, XiĄŻan 710119, China This study investigated the influence of mesophilic starter (M), thermophilic starter (T), Lactobacillus Plantarum ssp. Plantarum ATCC 14917 (Lp), a mix of the M and T (M1), and a mix of the M, T, and Lp (M2) on protein amino acid composition and nutritional evaluation in goat cheeses during maturation. The results of our SDS-PAGE analysis showed that the high-molecular-weight proteins in M2 cheese mostly degraded, producing a relevant amount of low-molecular-weight proteins. We detected 16 amino acids in all cheeses. The total amount of essential amino acids/total amino acids (TEAA/TAA) value ranged between 38.98%¨C44.63%. The nutritional evaluation showed that the TEAA of all 60-day-old cheeses exceeded the recommended WHO/FAO value and the score of amino acid ratio coefficient (SRC) and essential amino acid index (EAAI) result indicated that cheeses produced using M and M2 exhibited higher nutritional value than other cheeses. In conclusion, M2 cheese contained a high nutritional value with various molecular-weight proteins. http://pubs.sciepub.com/jfnr/10/9/3/jfnr-10-9-3.pdf goat cheese starter culture protein SDS-PAGE amino acid composition nutritional evaluation