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ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #150360
Title: PROTEIN FRACTIONATION AND PROPERTIES OF SALICORNIA MEAL

Author
item Wu, Ying Victor
item Sessa, David

Submitted to: Journal of the American Oil Chemists' Society
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/28/2003
Publication Date: 2/2/2004
Citation: WU, Y., SESSA, D.J. 2004. PROTEIN FRACTIONATION AND PROPERTIES OF SALICORNIA MEAL. JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN OIL CHEMISTS' SOCIETY. 38:1083-1085.

Interpretive Summary: Salt accumulates in irrigated farm lands and makes the soil unsuitable to raise conventional crops, which are not salt-tolerant. Salicornia is a salt-marsh oilseed plant, and the seed is rich in both oil and protein. Salicornia is thus an attractive alternative crop for high-salt soil. Little is known concerning salicornia protein. This paper studies the fractionation of protein and properties of salicornia meal by sequential extraction. The proportion and composition of different protein fractions obtained form a basis for increased utilization of salicornia. Farmers can benefit from increased production of salicornia from high-salt soil, and industry can benefit from a new source of protein.

Technical Abstract: Salicornia bigelovii Torr, is an annual salt-marsh oilseed plant. Hexane-defatted salicornia meal was extracted sequentially with 0.5 M sodium chloride (2x), water, 70% ethanol, and 0.1 N sodium hydroxide (2x). Each sodium chloride extract was dialyzed against deionized water and centrifuged to separate water-soluble fraction (albumin) from salt-soluble fraction (globulin) before freeze drying. Ethanol extracts and neutralized sodium hydroxide extracts (glutelin) were dialyzed against water and freeze-dried. Globulin accounted for the highest amount of protein nitrogen, followed by glutelin and albumin. Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of reduced albumin, globulin and glutelin showed a number of protein bands. Nitrogen solubility of defatted salicornia meal from pH 2 to 11 indicated a minimum solubility of 22% around pH 4.5. Non-protein nitrogen of defatted meal was 23% of total nitrogen and higher than defatted soybean, sunflower, and rapeseed meals. Albumin had highest lysine and sulfur amino acids per 16 g nitrogen among all the fractions analyzed.