In
silico studies of the interaction between MNEI and the sweet taste
receptor lead to the design of charged mutants of MNEI which
were successfully produced in Escherichia coli. Among them, the mutant Y65R was proven particularly promising for its high sweetness. Here, we provide a thorough
physico-chemical comparison of Y65R and MNEI, together with
an extensive evaluation of their sweetness in different experimental
conditions. These conditions have been chosen to reproduce
those of some common sweet drinks, which we believe could constitute
the first applicative target of new sweeteners structurally
derived from monellin