Amino acid composition of wild yam (Dioscorea spp.)

A Doss,V.R Mohan,P.S Tresina

doi:10.26656/fr.2017.3(5).119

Abstract

Tubers of wild yam (Dioscorea alata, D. bulbifera var. vera, D. esculenta, D. oppositifolia var. oppositifolia, D. oppositifolia var. dukhumensis, D. pentaphylla var. pentaphylla, D. spicata, D. tomentosa and D. wallichi) were analyzed for its amino acids composition. Asparatic acid and glutamic acid were found to be predominant among all the investigated Dioscorea species which ranged from 5.21 to 9.36 and 3.20 to 8.12 g/100 g protein respectively. The essential amino acids such as isoleucine, phenylalanine tyrosine, histidine, isoleucine and valine were found to be more or less higher than FAO/WHO (1991) requirement pattern. Thus, the present investigation demonstrated that the Dioscorea spp. can act as a good source of amino acid

Highlights

Since time immemorial in the tropics and subtropics, roots and tubers are the most important food crops (Behera et al, 2009)
Plant sample: Nine samples of wild yam tubers (D. alata, D. bulbifera var. vera, D. esculanta, D. oppositifolia, var. oppositifolia, D. oppositifolia var. dukhumensis, D. pentaphylla var. pentaphylla, D. spicata, D. tomentosa and D. wallichi) grown in sandy loam soil consumed by the tribals Kanikkars/Palliyars were collected using multistage sampling technique in three consecutive rainy seasons during August and January 2016 from the South Eastern slopes of Western Ghats, Virudhunagar district, Madurai District, Kanyakumari district, Tirunelveli district in Tamilnadu
Among the species identified D. oppositifolia var. dukhumensis contain a higher amount of glutamic acid and D. alata contain a higher amount of aspartic acid

Summary

Introduction

Since time immemorial in the tropics and subtropics, roots and tubers are the most important food crops (Behera et al, 2009). The information on the subject of the chemical and nutritional content of wild edible tuber is not enough (Babu et al, 1990; Nair and Nair, 1992; Rajyalakshmi and Geervani, 1994; Shanthakumari et al, 2008; Alozie et al, 2009; Anatharaman et al, 2009; Mohan and Kalidass, 2010; Shajeela et al, 2011) In spite of their importance as a food source, to the best of our knowledge, there are no published studies on the amino acid composition of wild yam tubers consumed by Palliyars and Kanikkars tribes, South-Eastern slopes of Western Ghats, Tamilnadu and information on the amino acid composition of wild yam is scarce. The present study was initiated to evaluate the amino acid profile of Dioscorea spp. for the first time

Materials and methods

Amino acid analysis

Results and discussion