Cheeses were triturated and homogenised for the physical chemical assays. To

characterise cheese samples the following analysis were carried out, in triplicate: fat by the method of Gerber-Van Gulik (Instituto Adolfo Lutz., 1985); titratable acidity (Instituto Adolfo Lutz, 1985); moisture (Case, Bradley, & Williams, 1985); ash (Instituto Adolfo Lutz, 1985); salt (Serres, Amariglio, & Petransxiene, 1973) and to determine pH, 10 g of grated cheese were transferred to a 100 ml beaker, 10 ml of distilled water was added and after homogenising 30 ml of distilled water was added; the mixture was left to rest for 5 min and was then filtered through hydrophilic cotton into 250 ml Erlenmeyer flask, cotton was rinsed with 10 ml of distilled water, squeezed and the clear filtrate was used for pH determination.

As a common practise in our laboratory, analysis for fat, moisture, ash and salt were Compound C only determined on the first day of ripening. To evaluate proteolysis, total nitrogen (TN) was determined by the micro-Kjeldahl method according to AOAC (1997) using a factor of 6.38 to determine total protein. For soluble nitrogen evaluation, the procedure for preparing the cheese extract was adapted from Vakaleris and Price (1959). Fifty grammes of grated cheese was homogenised with 100 ml of distilled water PCI32765 at 40–45 °C and 50 ml of 0.5 M sodium citrate in a mixer for 7 min. The homogenous milky solution was transferred, using distilled water, into a 250 ml volumetric flask, cooled to room temperature, brought up to volume and thoroughly mixed. This was referred to as the homogenate. To obtain the fraction of nitrogen soluble at pH 4.6, a 100 ml

aliquot of the homogenate was transferred to a 250 ml beaker, 20 ml of 1.41 M HCl was added and after 5 min 15 ml of distilled water was added. The solution was filtered through a Whatman No. 1 filter paper and the clear filtrate was used for subsequent measurement of total nitrogen content. To Protirelin obtain the fraction of nitrogen soluble in TCA 12%, a 50 ml aliquot of the homogenate was transferred to a 250 ml beaker, 50 ml of 24% TCA solution was added and after 15 min 15 ml of distilled water was added. The solution was filtered through a Whatman No. 1 filter paper and the clear filtrate was used for subsequent measurement of total nitrogen content. Ripening extension and depth indices were expressed as percentage of total nitrogen: NS-pH 4.6/TN*100 and NS-TCA 12%/TN*100, respectively. Proteolysis was monitored as described by Shalabi and Fox (1987). For this, 20 mg of cheese samples were incubated at 37 °C, in Eppendorf flasks, with 0.4 ml of 0.062 M tris–HCl buffer, pH 6.7, containing 42% (w/v) urea for 1 h. Afterwards, 10 μl of β-mercaptoethanol were added and the mixture again kept at 37 °C for 45 min. Finally, a drop of bromophenol blue was added.