索马甜研究现状及发展趋势

Research status and development trend of Thaumatin

随着生活水平的不断提高以及减糖行动的广泛开展,低卡路里、高甜度的天然甜味剂越来越受重视。索马甜由非洲竹芋提取而成的一种高甜、低热量、安全、无毒的天然甜味蛋白,在食品和医药等领域具有较高的商业价值。本文对索马甜来源、理化性质、生产现状、安全性评价及开发应用做简要概述。索马甜具有很好的热力学稳定性和抗压性,但因其蛋白特性,在某些条件下极易发生变性,导致其甜味消失或下降。关于索马甜对人体代谢的影响,现有的研究数据得出了相左的结论,仍需进行深入探索。低浓度的索马甜可以有效地增强食品风味,已成功应用于乳制品、糖果及其他食品。目前,正试图利用基因工程实现索马甜的大批量生产。

With the improvement of people's living standards and the focus on reducing sugar intake grows,natural sweeteners with low calorie and high sweetness are gaining increasing attention.Thaumatin,a natural sweet protein extracted from African plant Thaumatococcus daniellii Benth,is notable for its high sweetness,low calorie content,safety,non-toxicity,and significant commercial potential in the food and pharmaceutical industries.This paper reviewed the source,physical and chemical properties,production status,safety evaluation,and the development and application of thaumatin.Thaumatin had excellent thermodynamic stability and compression resistance.However,its protein nature made it prone to denature and loss of sweetness in certain environments,limiting its application.The existing research on thaumatin’s impact on human metabolism had yielded conflicting conclusions and further investigation was needed.At low concentration,thaumatin could effectively enhance theflavor of food products and had been successfully used in dairy and confectionery products.Large-scale thaumatin production through genetic engineering is underway.