What is "brazzein"

n. (context organic compound English) A sweet-tasting protein extracted from the West African fruit of ''Pentadiplandra brazzeana''.

Brazzein is a sweet-tasting protein extracted from the West African fruit of the climbing plant Oubli ( Pentadiplandra brazzeana Baillon). It was first isolated by the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1994.

Brazzein is found in the extracellular region, in the pulp tissue surrounding the seeds. With pentadin, discovered in 1989, brazzein is the second sweet-tasting protein discovered in the Oubli fruit.

Like the other sweet proteins discovered in plants, such as monellin and thaumatin, it is extremely sweet compared to commonly used sweeteners (500 to 2000 times sweeter than sucrose). The fruit tastes sweet to humans, monkeys, and bonobos, but gorillas have mutations in their sweetness receptors so that they do not find brazzein sweet, and they are not known to eat the fruit.