Rong JIA¹, Yuting LOU¹, Fuxin ZHANG¹, Yufang LIU¹, Weizhe WANG¹, Haishuai PENG¹, Yuanyuan HUI¹, Bini WANG^1,

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%–44.63%. 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.

goat cheese, starter culture, protein SDS-PAGE, amino acid composition, nutritional evaluation