The Amino Acid And Fatty Acid Compositions Of Tetrapleura Tetraptera (Uhiokiriho):- Okon, Abigail E.

ABSTRACT

Tetrapleura tetraptera fruit was analyzed for its Amino acid and fatty acid composition. The sample is composed of 59.48% unsaturated and 37.17% of saturated fatty acids. It has palmitoleic acid (2.98%) and oleic acid (56.50%) as the unsaturated fatty acid and capric acid (0.58%) Lauric acid (0.95%) myristic acid (0.98%) and palmitic acid (34.66%) as the saturated fatty acids. Oleic acid (56.50%) is the predominant unsaturated fatty acid and palmitic acid (34.66%) is the predominant saturated fatty acid while capric acid (0.58%) composition of Tetrapleura tetraptera fruits oil is very low. The physico-chemical properties of the oil shows iodine value (2.538 wij’s) saponification value (56.1 mgKOH/g) specific gravity (0.858) while the acid value and free fatty acid are 1.002 mgKOH/g and (0.501 mgKOH/g) respectively. The total amino acid composition of the fruit reveals a total of 17 amino acid (excluding tryptophan), with Glutamin acid (11.30 g/100g protein) and aspartic acid (9.66 g/100g protein) as the predominant amino acid while cystine (0.90 g/100g protein) and methionine (0.78 g/100g protein) as the most deficient amino acid. The total amino acid composition has a value of 72.18g/100g protein.