Fast analysis of proteins in wines by capillary gel electrophoresis

Wine proteins play an important role in different characteristics of wine (e.g., aroma and body, foaming in sparkling wines). They can also cause a number of technological problems during vinification and may be responsible for the appearance of turbidity in bottled wine. These important features of proteins in wine have made necessary the development of new and fast analytical methods that can provide deeper knowledge about these biopolymers. However, separation and characterization of wine proteins is difficult and time-consuming mainly due to their low concentration and large number of interfering compounds. Besides, long sample preparation protocols can bring about protein decomposition. This paper proposes a new and fast method for carrying out the analysis of the protein fraction of wines. The procedure consists of direct treatment of wine using a centrifugal filter device (CFD), denaturation of the proteinaceous fraction with sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and 2-mercaptoethanol, and subsequent CGE analysis of SDS-proteins. Results on the molecular weight (Mw) and relative quantity of proteins of wines are attained in about 1 h with this procedure. The method is applied to analyze different wines from Canary Islands. To our knowledge, this is the first report of separation of wine proteins according to their Mw by CGE.