Assessing the authenticity of animal rennet using δ15N analysis of chymosin

Food Chem. 2019 Sep 30;293:545-549. doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2019.04.106.

Federica Camin ¹, Luana Bontempo ², Luca Ziller ², Pietro Franceschi ³, Aldo Molteni ⁴, Roberto Corbella ⁵, Iris Verga ⁴

Affiliations

1 Department of Food Quality and Nutrition, Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione Edmund Mach 1, 38010 San Michele all'Adige, Italy. Electronic address: federica.camin@fmach.it.
2 Department of Food Quality and Nutrition, Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione Edmund Mach 1, 38010 San Michele all'Adige, Italy.
3 Unit of Computational Biology, Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione Edmund Mach 1, 38010 San Michele all'Adige, Italy.
4 Caglificio Clerici S.p.A. and Sacco S.r.l, Via Manzoni 29, I-22071 Cadorago (CO), Italy.
5 Caglio Bellucci S.r.l, Via Vito Bering 57, 41123 Modena (MO), Italy.

PMID: 31151646 DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2019.04.106

Abstract

Chymosin is a protease that curdles the milk casein. Animal rennet was the first discovered source of chymosin and its use is mandatory for the production of PDO cheeses such as Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano. Of the alternatives, fermentation-produced chymosin is the most competitive because it functions in a similar way, but is much cheaper. Analytical tools are necessary in order to distinguish the 2 types of chymosin and verify the compulsory use of animal rennet in the production of PDO cheeses. In this work, a method to analyse ¹⁵N/¹⁴N in chymosin after extraction was developed. The δ¹⁵N values of animal rennet range from 5.7‰ to 8‰, whereas the δ¹⁵N values of fermentation-produced chymosin are significantly lower, ranging from -5.3‰ to 2.2‰. A threshold value of 5.7‰ was defined for authentic animal rennet. Addition of fermentation-produced chymosin to animal rennet, or its complete substitution, can be therefore detected.

Keywords

Chymosin; IRMS; PDO cheese; Rennet; δ(15)N.

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