4.7 Article

Cryo-transmission electron tomography of native casein micelles from bovine milk

Journal

JOURNAL OF DAIRY SCIENCE
Volume 94, Issue 12, Pages 5770-5775

Publisher

ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC
DOI: 10.3168/jds.2011-4368

Keywords

casein micelle; micelle model; cryo-transmission electron tomography

Funding

  1. NIH [P41 RR001081]
  2. University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, Dairy Research Institute (Rosemont, IL)
  3. National Institutes of Health [1R21HD065170-01A1]

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Caseins are the principal protein components in milk and an important ingredient in the food industry. In liquid milk, caseins are found as micelles of casein proteins and colloidal calcium nanoclusters. Casein micelles were isolated from raw skim milk by size exclusion chromatography and suspended in milk protein-free serum produced by ultrafiltration (molecular weight cut-off of 3 kDa) of raw skim milk. The micelles were imaged by cryo-electron microscopy and subjected to tomographic reconstruction methods to visualize the 3-dimensional and internal organization of native casein micelles. This provided new insights into the internal architecture of the casein micelle that had not been apparent from prior cryo-transmission electron microscopy studies. This analysis demonstrated the presence of water-filled cavities (similar to 20 to 30 inn in diameter), channels (diameter greater than similar to 5 nm), and several hundred high-density nanoclusters (6 to 12 nm in diameter) within the interior of the micelles. No spherical protein submicellar structures were observed.

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