Lacto into bacteria: breast milk protein will significantly extend the shelf life of meat and yoghurts

Scientists have found that adding lactoferrin protein, which protects newborns from infections, to yoghurts, meat and dry mixes not only makes products healthier, but also works as a powerful natural preservative. The substance can also protect wine products from spoilage and help create effective biodegradable packaging. However, so far the widespread introduction of such an additive into the food industry is facing limitations, experts said. First of all, this is the extremely high cost of production, which currently uses animal bioreactors, such as transgenic goats and rabbits. They also learned how to grow protein in hamster kidney cells. When a new supplement can enter the human diet and how safe it is — in the "Izvestia" material.

What is lactoferrin?

Scientists from Novgorod State University and the V.M. Gorbatov Federal Scientific Center for Food Systems of the Russian Academy of Sciences have studied how the natural protein lactoferrin can improve the properties and prolong the shelf life of animal products. This substance is one of the key components of breast milk. It protects the baby from bacteria and viruses in the first months of life, while his own immune system has not yet formed.

"Nature has created lactoferrin as a highly accurate weapon against bacteria," Ulyana Medvedeva, director of the NovSU Institute of Chemical Technology and Associate Professor, told Izvestia. — Any microorganism needs iron for life. Once near an infection, lactoferrin, due to its shape, literally snatches iron atoms right from the microorganisms from under their noses and locks them inside its traps. Deprived of a vital resource, bacteria lose their ability to reproduce.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Anna Selina

Experts have studied hundreds of studies from around the world and identified industries in which lactoferrin can be used. First of all, we are talking about the production of baby food, the researchers explained. Protein can also be used in the production of dairy products for adults and children.

"Yogurt with lactoferrin has shown fantastic results in laboratory tests,— Ulyana Medvedeva noted. — Samples with a protein concentration of 1.5% showed the greatest reduction in the number of pathogens Bacillus cereus, Enterococcus faecalis and Candida albicans. The number of Bacillus cereus decreased by 99.99% by the sixth day of incubation.

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How breast milk protein is obtained

Experts have also studied the effect of lactoferrin on meat products. In experiments, protein was sprayed onto chilled meat or incorporated into edible sausage casings. Studies of sliced raw ham have shown that the combination of high hydrostatic pressure and lactoferrin effectively suppresses the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella enterica. The number of pathogens decreased, and the antimicrobial effect persisted for seven days even when the temperature regime was violated.

In experiments with chilled chicken breast, a coating of carboxymethylcellulose with a high concentration of lactoferrin (20 mg/g) made it possible to maintain the microbiological safety of the product for another six days after the expiration of the standard shelf life, until the 13th day of storage. In the control group, the permissible limits were exceeded on the seventh day. In homemade sausage, a film with 20% lactoferrin extended the shelf life to 18 days instead of the usual six.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Pavel Volkov

Protein is already being tried to be added to plant-based alternatives to milk for vegans in order to increase their nutritional value. In addition, it is used in winemaking to combat the yeast Dekkera bruxellensis — one of the main causes of wine spoilage — and to create biodegradable packaging, the scientists said.

A separate area of research is related to the production of lactoferrin. The main limitation for the widespread use of protein remains the high cost of its production technologies. According to the review, human lactoferrin has already been learned to be produced in hamster kidney cells, baker's yeast, and bacteria.

— A special emphasis is placed on Aspergillus awamori filamentous mushrooms, which successfully produce an analog of human and mouse protein. Japanese and American scientists have developed a technology for producing human lactoferrin directly in grains of genetically modified rice. Successful experiments have also been conducted on tobacco," Ulyana Medvedeva said.

Photo: TASS/Kirill Kukhmar

One of the key directions is the use of transgenic animal bioreactors. The technology consists in introducing the human or cow lactoferrin gene into the animal's genome. Protein is released directly into the milk along with casein. Lines of rabbits and mice producing recombinant protein have been created. The real breakthrough was the creation of transgenic goats and cows that produce "therapeutic" milk.

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When will lactoferrin production start in Russia?

""In addition to extending the shelf life of products, lactoferrin is used as a laboratory marker of intestinal inflammation," "Invitro" gastroenterologist Vitaliya Zhukova told Izvestia.

— We measure it to understand how actively the immune system attacks its own intestines. Lactoferrin accumulates in the secondary granules of neutrophils, the "first strike" cells of innate immunity. When inflammation begins in the intestinal mucosa, they migrate to the focus," the doctor said.

The protein remains stable in the biological sample, which makes it a convenient laboratory marker.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Eduard Kornienko

The widespread introduction of lactoferrin into the food industry is still facing a number of limitations, the scientists said. Among them is the extremely high cost of production: To obtain 1 kg of protein, it is required to process raw materials from almost 50 cows. In addition, there are no uniform international safety standards for recombinant forms of protein, and there is insufficient data on the safest possible dosages for long-term use, NovSU noted.

Russia plans to build the first lactoferrin production plant in the Nizhny Novgorod region. "However," Sergey Kosogor, head of the "Smart Supply Chains" segment of the FoodNet NTI working group, told Izvestia that investors are now adjusting plans to take into account the complexity and cost of the project. According to him, despite the proven effectiveness of protein, the industrial production of food and medicines based on it has not yet been practically developed.

The creation of stable breeds or lines of farm animals producing protein, the development of technologies to reduce the cost of obtaining it from the milk of such animals, as well as the creation of product formulations taking into account the properties of lactoferrin can contribute to the large—scale introduction of lactoferrin into the food industry, the expert believes.