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Table 1 Comparison of thaumatin, monellin, mabinlin, pentadin, brazzein, curculin and miraculin.

From: Sweet proteins – Potential replacement for artificial low calorie sweeteners

 

Thaumatin

Monellin

Mabinlin

Pentadin

Brazzein

Curculin

Miraculin

Source

Thaumatococcus danielli Benth

Dioscoreophyllum cumminsii Diels

Capparis masakai Levl

Pentadiplandra brazzeana Baillon

Pentadiplandra brazzeana Baillon

Curculingo latifolia

Richadella dulcifica

Geographic distribution

West Africa

West Africa

China

West Africa

West Africa

Malaysia

West Africa

Variants

I, II, a, b, ca

-

I, II- a, III, IVa

-

-

-

-

Sweetness factor (weight basis)

3000

3000

100

500

2000

550

-

Molecular mass (active form, kDa)

22.2

10.7

12.4

12.0b

6.5

24.9

98.4

Amino acids

207

45 (A chain)

50 (B chain)

33 (A chain)

72 (B chain)

?

54

114

191

Active form

Monomer

Dimer (A + B)

Dimer (A + B)

?

Monomer

Dimer (A + A)

Tetramer (A+A+A+A)

  1. Source: Adapted from Kurihara (1994). aAt least five different forms of thaumatin (Lee et al., 1988) and four different forms of mabinlin (Nirasawa et al., 1994) have been identified. bA chromatographic fraction containing a 12-kDa protein was sweet. This same fraction, when subjected to electrophoresis under non-reducing conditions showed bands in the region between 22 and 41 kDa, suggesting the presence of subunits.