Allergenicity of cow's milk proteins: IV. Relationship to goat's milk proteins as studied by serum-agar precipitation

Abstract

Summary Double-gel-diffusion precipitation analysis of the relationship between cow's and goat's milk reveals: 1. Cow's milk and goat's milk casein have precipitin patterns of almost complete identity with each other. This tends to confirm previous opinions that goat's casein is closely related to cow's casein, antigenically. 2. Although it had been generally accepted that the whey proteins of the goat and cow are species specific, our precipitation-in-gel experiments indicate that goat's lactoglobulin and lactalbumin are immunologically related to bovine lactoglobulin and lactalbumin. 3. Our experiments cast doubt on the value of substituting raw goat's milk for cow's milk preparations in the treatment of infants and children allergic to cow's milk.