Cow-Free Milk Proteins: Technology Uses Bacteria to Create Vegan Cheeses and Yogurts

Written by Fabio Lucas Carvalho

Published on 22/07/2025 at 14:08

Updated on 22/07/2025 at 14:11

Foto: Reprodução

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A New Technology Could Completely Change The Dairy Market. Scientists Have Managed To Produce Milk Proteins Without Using Cows, With The Help Of Modified Bacteria. This Opens The Door For Vegan Cheeses And Yogurts With The Same Nutritional Value As Traditional Products, But In A Sustainable Way.

Scientists Have Achieved Something Unprecedented: Using Bacteria To Produce Essential Milk Proteins Without Any Ingredients Of Animal Origin.

This Discovery Paves The Way For Vegan Cheeses And Yogurts That Mimic Traditional Products At The Molecular Level, Without Lactose, Animal Cruelty, Or High Environmental Impact.

Casein Without Animal Origin

The Study, Published In Trends In Biotechnology, Presents Two Methods For Producing Casein. This Protein Is Fundamental In Dairy Products And Highly Valued For Its Nutritional Value And Functionality.

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW

Phosphorylation Challenge

Industries Already Use Microorganisms To Manufacture Supplements And Enzymes. But Reproducing Casein With All Its Characteristics Required Something Extra.

The Main Difficulty Lies In Phosphorylation, A Process That Adds Phosphate Groups To Proteins.

This Step Is Essential For Casein To Bind To Calcium, Forming Micelles — Structures That Ensure Stability To Milk And Help In The Transport Of Calcium And Phosphate In The Body.

Two Innovative Strategies

To Overcome This Challenge, Scientists Adopted Two Approaches.

First, They Modified Bacteria To Coexpress Three Kinase Proteins From Bacillus Subtilis. These Enzymes Are Capable Of Phosphorylating Proteins, Imitating The Natural Process.

Then, They Created A Phosphomimetic Version Of αs1-Casein. In This Version, The Serine Residues Normally Phosphorylated Were Replaced With Aspartic Acid.

The Aim Was To Simulate The Negative Charge Of Phosphorylation And Its Functional Properties.

Promising Results

The Tests Conducted With The Two Versions Of Bacterial Casein Showed Good Results. The Ability To Bind To Calcium Was High, And Both The Digestibility And The Structure Of The Proteins Were Comparable To Those Of Bovine Casein.

The Phosphorylated Version More Faithfully Mimics The Protein Of Natural Milk. The Phosphomimetic Version Offers A Simpler Solution To Achieve Similar Functionalities.

Despite The Advances, Researchers Warn That Additional Quantitative Analyses Are Still Necessary.

The Goal Is To Better Understand The Potential Of These Microbial Proteins And Enable Their Large-Scale Production For Sustainable And Cruelty-Free Foods.

Study Available At CELL.

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Mandityira Tinotenda

#221163

06/01/2026 22:23

Exciting breakthrough! 😊 Scientists have engineered bacteria to produce milk proteins without cows, paving the way for sustainable, vegan dairy products with the same nutritional value. This could revolutionise the dairy market! 💡

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Cow-Free Milk Proteins: Technology Uses Bacteria to Create Vegan Cheeses and Yogurts

A New Technology Could Completely Change The Dairy Market. Scientists Have Managed To Produce Milk Proteins Without Using Cows, With The Help Of Modified Bacteria. This Opens The Door For Vegan Cheeses And Yogurts With The Same Nutritional Value As Traditional Products, But In A Sustainable Way.

Casein Without Animal Origin

Phosphorylation Challenge

Two Innovative Strategies

Promising Results

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Cow-Free Milk Proteins: Technology Uses Bacteria to Create Vegan Cheeses and Yogurts

A New Technology Could Completely Change The Dairy Market. Scientists Have Managed To Produce Milk Proteins Without Using Cows, With The Help Of Modified Bacteria. This Opens The Door For Vegan Cheeses And Yogurts With The Same Nutritional Value As Traditional Products, But In A Sustainable Way.

Casein Without Animal Origin

Phosphorylation Challenge

Two Innovative Strategies

Promising Results

A Chinese factory in Guangdong is assembling a humanoid robot every 30 minutes while Tesla, Figure, and Boston Dynamics still struggle to deliver 10 thousand per year.

In Niger, mud buildings have stood for ten generations while the world spends billions on concrete and steel, now African architects are proving at the Venice Biennale and in real projects that red earth can be the smartest and most sustainable building material of the 21st century.

Seven world powers including the US, China, and Russia are spending €22 billion on a reactor in the south of France that aims to confine plasma at 150 million degrees Celsius, ten times the temperature of the Sun’s core, using a magnetic field capable of lifting an entire aircraft carrier.

Secret chamber sealed 4,500 years ago found in the Pyramid of Khufu, and Hawass announces its opening to the world in 2026

With a wingspan of 152 meters, 76 tires, and a capacity to carry 1,270 tons, the Boeing Pelican was the giant “flying ship” that promised to cross oceans close to the water on an invisible air cushion beneath its wings.

A public school student single-handedly created a machine capable of treating water for up to 50 people using only solar energy. It was awarded third place at one of the most important science fairs in the world.

Germany installed vertical solar panels on a lake in Bavaria, and the result broke conventional logic: instead of producing energy at midday peak, the plant generates more early in the morning and in the evening, exactly when families turn on appliances and factories are in full swing.

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