Monellin, incidentally is the first sweet protein to be identified and was discovered in 1969 in the fruit of the West African shrub known as serendipity berry (Dioscoreophyllum cumminsii) and was first mistook to be a carbohydrate!
The protein was named in 1972 after the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, U.S.A., where it was isolated and characterized.For humans, monellin is 100,000 times sweeter than sucrose.
There are four more such high intensity sweet proteins identified so far
- Thaumatin (1972),
- Pentadin (1989),
- Mabinlin (1983) and
- Brazzein (1994).
- Dr. P. Kumarasamy
