53850-34-3 Usage
Description
Thaumatin is a mixture of intensely sweet-tasting proteins extracted from the fruit of a West African plant, Thaumatococcus daniellii. The two major sweet-tasting proteins, thaumatin I and II (TI and THII), were isolated by Van der Wei and his group at Unilever in 1972. It is marketed in the UK by Tate & Lyle pIc as Talin and has been used for centuries by West Africans as a source of sweetness.
Used in Food and Beverage Industry:
Thaumatin is used as a sweetener for beverages and desserts, but its applications are limited due to its liquorice taste and delayed sweetness. It is more commonly used as a partial sweetener, mixed with other more rapidly tasting sweeteners.
Used in Oral Care Products:
Thaumatin is used as a flavor enhancer in toothpaste, mouthwash, and chewing gum, where it magnifies flavors such as spearmint, cinnamon, wintergreen, and peppermint by up to ten times. Its flavor potentiating characteristic, together with the lingering sweet taste, can be beneficially used for enhancing masking flavors in these products.
Used in Medicines:
Thaumatin is used as a flavor enhancer to improve the taste of medicines, making them more palatable for consumption.
Used in Japanese Products:
In Japan, Thaumatin has been used since 1979 in a variety of products, where it has been shown to enhance and improve the flavor of coffee and milk products. It is used in coffee-flavored products, ice cream, iced milk drinks-on-sticks, and spray-dried milk powders. Thaumatin also enhances savory flavors, and combinations of thaumatin with nucleotides, spices, and/or other flavors may be used to replace monosodium glutamate, an ingredient of current concern with regard to safety.
Preparation
Thaumatin I and II proteins can be produced recombinantly in a wide range of hosts, including microorganisms such as bacteria and yeast, and in GM plants to enhance the organoleptic properties.
Production Methods
Thaumatin is a naturally occurring intense sweetener isolated from
the fruit of the African plant Thaumatococcus daniellii (Benth).
Commercially, thaumatin is produced by aqueous extraction under
reduced pH conditions followed by other physical processes such as
reverse osmosis.
Health Hazard
Thaumatin is the only natural high-intensity sweetener, and products containing it do not require to be labelled 'artificially sweetened'. It has a low calorific value and is non-cariogenic (Higginbotham, 1986). The report of the Joint F AOfWHO Expert Committee (1987) recorded no mutagenic, teratogenic or allergenic effects of thaumatin, and concluded that the lack of toxicity, together with its ready digestion to normal food components, indicated that its only dietary effect was to make an insignificant contribution to the normal protein intake.
Pharmaceutical Applications
Thaumatin is a naturally occurring intense sweetening agent
approximately 2000–3000 times as sweet as sucrose. It has a
delayed-onset taste profile and long (up to one hour) licorice-like
aftertaste. It is used extensively in food applications as a sweetening
agent and flavor enhancer, and has potential for use in pharmaceutical
applications such as oral suspensions. The typical level
used in foods is 0.5–3 ppm, although higher levels are used in
certain applications such as chewing gum. Synergistic effects with
other intense sweeteners such as acesulfame K and saccharin occur.
The extensive disulfide crosslinking within thaumatin maintains the
tertiary structure of the polypeptide: cleavage of just one disulfide
bridge has been shown to result in the loss of the sweet taste of
thaumatin.
Safety
Thaumatin is accepted for use in food products either as a sweetener
or as a flavor modifier in a number of areas including Europe and
Australia. It is also used in oral hygiene products such as
mouthwashes and toothpastes, and has been proposed for use in
oral pharmaceutical formulations. Thaumatin is generally regarded
as a relatively nontoxic and nonirritant material when used as an
excipient. In Europe, because of its lack of toxicity, an ADI has been
set of ‘not specified’.
LD50 (mouse, oral): >20 g/kg
LD50 (rat, oral): >20 g/kg
Regulatory Status
GRAS listed. Accepted for use as a food additive in Europe.
Included in nonparenteral medicines licensed in the UK.
Regulations
Thaumatin has been permitted as a natural food in Japan since June 1979. It was awarded GRAS status for use in chewing gum in the USA in October 1984 and, in the UK, was permitted for use in foods, drinks and dietary products, excluding baby foods, by the Sweeteners in Foods Regulations in 1983. The Joint F AOjWHO Expert Committee declared an ADI 'not specified' for thaumatin in 1985 (Joint F AOjWHO, 1987). Approval has also been gained in many countries world wide for use of thaumatin as a sweetener and flavour enhancer, particularly in chewing gum. These include Australia, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Mexico and Denmark (Higginbotham, 1986).
Check Digit Verification of cas no
The CAS Registry Mumber 53850-34-3 includes 8 digits separated into 3 groups by hyphens. The first part of the number,starting from the left, has 5 digits, 5,3,8,5 and 0 respectively; the second part has 2 digits, 3 and 4 respectively.
Calculate Digit Verification of CAS Registry Number 53850-34:
(7*5)+(6*3)+(5*8)+(4*5)+(3*0)+(2*3)+(1*4)=123
123 % 10 = 3
So 53850-34-3 is a valid CAS Registry Number.
