Cheese-making Ability of Plumeria alba and Plumeria rubra Latex: Milk Clotting and Proteolytic Activities

Abstract

In cheese making industry, plant enzymes are used to produce cheese. In Ouest Africa, they produced the cheese “waragashi” with the mix milk and the plant Calotropis procera. The objective of our study is to assess ability to coagulate milk of the latex from news plants Plumeria alba and Plumeria rubra. If the two plants can supplied Calotropis procera in cheese making. For the results, we observed that the latex of Plumeria alba and Plumeria rubra are richer in proteins and mineral elements than the latex of Calotropis procera. It appears that the milk clotting and proteolytic activities of the latex of Plumeria alba and Plumeria rubra reached their optimum at 75°C while those of Calotropis procera reached the optimum at 55°C but remained active above 60 and 70°C. The Proteolytic Activity of the latex of C. procera and the two species of Plumeria was maximal at concentrations of 10% and 20% in the reaction medium, respectively. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis revealed that Plumeria alba latex had proteins with molecular weights of 10 and 25 kDa while the molecular weights Plumeria rubra latex proteins were 10, 25, 45kDa. The MCA/ PA ratio of Calotropis procera, Plumeria alba and Plumeria rubra was 1142.86; 810.81 and 576.92 respectively. These two Plumeria latex could validly replace C. procera latex in the production of cheese.