Casein network formation at oil–water interfaces is reduced by β-casein and increased by Ca²⁺

Mixtures of bovine caseins can serve as a benchmark for understanding the functionality of microbial-based recombinant caseins at oil–water interfaces. In this work we show that, in the presence of Ca²⁺, the individual casein fractions form viscoelastic networks at the oil–water interface with comparable stiffness. In the absence of Ca²⁺, α_s2- and β-casein interfacial network formation was strongly inhibited over the full deformation regime. For α_s1-casein, the network stiffness was increased in the absence of Ca²⁺ at small deformations (<15%), but at large deformations (>50%) it was completely disrupted, to a similar stiffness as α_s2- and β-casein. The interfacial structure formed by κ-casein was largely unaffected by Ca²⁺ due to limited phosphorylation. We hypothesize that the differences between calcium-sensitive caseins lie in the conformation they assume at the interface. Both α_s2- and β-casein adsorb in a train-tail conformation with a tail extending into the aqueous bulk phase, whereas α_s1-casein adsorbs in a loop-train conformation, with a loop that extends less into the bulk phase. The tail-train configuration is hypothesized to increase the inter-molecular Ca²⁺ bridging thereby increasing the interfacial stiffness of α_s2- and β-casein. Blending the casein fractions revealed a strong negative effect of β-casein on the interfacial modulus, which was more pronounced at a higher concentration. The presence of Ca²⁺ remained important for interfacial network formation of a casein blend. Without Ca²⁺, the interfacial network was less stiff, more viscous, and behaved like a 2d polymer solution. With this work we showed that casein interfacial network formation at oil–water interfaces is mediated by Ca²⁺ bridging. Blending the different casein fractions decreased the interfacial viscoelastic properties through the presence of β-casein. These results indicate that future work on recombinant caseins should focus on single genetic variants, since a blend of variants will likely decrease interfacial functionality.