Advances in the Separation of Functional Egg Proteins – Egg White Proteins

The egg is considered one of nature's preserved foods, which provide complete nutrients. It mainly comprises egg white and yolk. White contains 11% solids, most of which are proteins. These include ovalbumin (54%), ovotransferrin (12%), ovomucoid (11%), lysozyme (3.5%), and ovomucin (3.5%) as major proteins, with avidin (0.05%), cystatin (0.05%), ovomacroglobulin, and flavoproteins as minor proteins. These proteins have been identified for their activities, such as antimicrobial, anti-oxidative, metal-chelating, ACE-inhibitory, and many more. There have been many methods developed to separate these proteins both singly and multiply, which are used in different industries, such as food and pharmaceutical. This chapter mainly discusses the separation methods for laboratory scale as well as scale-up methods for single proteins and multiple proteins in sequence. The major emphasis of the discussion for each protein separation method is about the practicality of the methods for the commercial applications. Separation methods for both the major egg white proteins and the minor proteins are included.