Abstract: Proteomic profiles of whey proteins from bovine colostrum, bovine mature milk, goat colostrum and goat mature milk were obtained by high resolution mass spectrometry. By partial least square discriminant analysis, it was observed that bovine colostrum and mature milk were more similar in protein composition than goat colostrum and mature milk, and nine proteins with high abundance in goat milk could be regarded as protein markers to distinguish among these four milk samples. Bioinformatics analysis showed that most of the high-abundance proteins in goat milk were related to immune responses and metabolic processes, which indicates that goat milk helps newborns develop an immune system against microbial infection. These results provide an in-depth understanding of proteins from goat milk and its products, and are of great significance for the nutritional improvement of breast milk substitutes as well as the development of breast milk substitutes.

Key words: goat milk; bovine milk; proteomics; whey protein; colostrum; mature milk