News
Extracting plant proteins from duckweed: a process developed by Laurent Bazinet’s team.
These small aquatic plants, which proliferate in large numbers in bodies of water in Quebec and around the world, produce an exceptional quantity of plant protein.
Working on several experiments as part of the Chair VITALE project, Laurent Bazinet, Tristan Muller and Marie-Éve Bernier have developed a method for extracting this protein from the plant, which is a veritable factory, doubling its biomass in 24 hours.
The main protein it produces is rubisco (ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase), a key protein in photosynthesis. “Its abundance partly explains why this plant is a veritable protein factory. Duckweed can double its biomass in 24 hours. I don’t know of any other plant that can match that,” says Professor Bazinet.
The possibilities this opens up:
“On the one hand, they could be used as food ingredients, in the same way as soy proteins found in a host of foods. We could also exploit the functional properties of these proteins, notably their capacity as a foaming agent. Our experiments have shown that duckweed proteins have 10 times the foaming power of egg white,” sums up Laurent Bazinet.
Our Inafian members are only just beginning their exploration of duckweed. We invite you to read the press release in greater detail.
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