Comparative Amino Acid Compositions of Uvaria chamae Stem Bark and Poly Herbal Mixture

Abstract

The study evaluated comparative amino acids compositions of Uvaria chamae stem bark and Ruzu bitters. The amino acids compositions were determined using amino acid analyzer. The result of amino acid composition showed that eighteen amino acids were detected in both samples. Ten of the detected amino acids were essential amino acids and eight were non-essential. Glumatic acid had the highest concentration of 10.90 and 5.15 g/100g protein in Uvaria chamae stem bark and Ruzu bitters followed by aspartic acid with values of 8.40 and 3.44 g/100 g protein in Uvaria chamae stem bark and Ruzu bitters respectively. Leucine was the next amino acid in Uvaria chamae stem bark and Ruzu bitters followed by arginine. Uvaria chamae stem bark had the highest level of total amino acids of 72.66 g/100 g protein and Ruzu bitters had 32.17 g/100 g protein. For the EAA, it was 34.41 g/100 g for Uvaria chamae >17.44 g/100 g for Ruzu bitter. The highest essential amino acid (EAA) was leucine (6.13 and 3.56 g/100 g) in Uvaria chamae stem bark and Ruzu bitters. The total sulphur amino acid was generally low at 1.01-1.78 g/100 g but the % Cysteine in total sulphur amino acid (TSAA) was slightly high at 47.05% for Ruzu bitters but lower in Uvaria chamae stem bark (27.44%). The percentage coefficient variance (CV %) of the amino acid values were generally high with the exception of isoleucine, phenylalanine, lysine, methionine, leucine, cysteine and alanine with respective CV % values of 27.32, 31.97, 33.68, 37.50, 37.53, 38.81 and 39.05 while rest of CV % values ranged from 50.69-94.53 showing the gap of the amino acid values in the two samples to each other. The results of this study indicate that Uvaria chamae stem bark is richer in essential amino acid while % Cys/TSAA value is higher in Ruzu bitters.