Analysis of Selected Amino Acids in Different Varieties of Wheat Available in Punjab, Pakistan

A validated method is proposed to check amino acids variability among eighty-nine wheat samples collected from Punjab province of Pakistan during 2012-2013. Orthophthalaldehyde along with 2-mercaptoethanol was used as a derivatizing reagent that showed florescence at detection wavelength of Ex of 340 nm and Em of 450 nm under suitable pH range of 9-10. RP-HPLC-FLD system employed was Agilent 1100 series equipped with Eclipse XDB C-18 column (2.1 × 150 mm, 5 µ) and column temperature was maintained at 40°C. The maximum concentration of aspartic acid, glutamic acid, leucine, arginine, and histidine was found in Vehari (0.496 g/100 g), Rajanpur (1.292 g/100 g), Rahim Yar khan (0.60 g/100 g), Bahawalpur (0.662 g/100 g), and Narowal (0.377 g/100 g), respectively, while the minimum in Narowal (0.13 g/100 g), Vehari (0.706 g/100 g), Narowal (0.339 g/100 g), Muzaffargarh (0.14 g/100 g), and Rahim Yar Khan (0.088 g/100 g) among the samples obtained from districts. Wheat variety Pb-11 contained relatively high aspartic acid (0.297 g/100 g), glutamic acid (0.897 g/100 g), and leucine (0.484 g/100 g) whereas variety Ass-11 had arginine (0.895 g/100 g) and histidine (0.266 g/100 g). The amino acids were found to vary as follows: aspartic acid 0.130–0.496, glutamic acid 0.706–1.292, leucine 0.321–0.6, arginine 0.118–0.895, and histidine 0.088–0.377 g/100 g flour. The accuracy was in the range of 95.88–100.67%, whereas the RSD for precision was not more than 1.40 for all amino acids