Membrane fractionation of a β-lactoglobulin tryptic digest: Effect of the pH

The tryptic digestion of β-lactoglobulin leads to the release of a large range of biologically active peptides. Ultrafiltration/nanofiltration technology can be used to fractionate protein hydrolysates in order to obtain permeate products with increased functionality and free from intact proteins and enzymes. The influence of the pH in the fractionation of the hydrolysate through a polyethersulfone membrane (MWCO 5 kDa) was investigated in this work. In this case peptide transmission was mainly governed by charge mechanisms and reached its maximum value when the pH value is close to the peptide isoelectric point. Almost complete rejection of acidic peptides was achieved at basic pH values due to electrostatic repulsive forces with the negatively charged membrane and, in agreement with Donnan theory, positively charged peptides shown lower transmission than the neutral species. The highest peptide recovery and the best separation factor between bioactive and non-bioactive peptides were obtained following nanofiltration at pH 8.0.