1. Application of glycosidase activity as a marker for characterizing and identifying vegetables
- Author
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Yukari Ito, Yasuko Amano, Shigeyuki Oguri, and Ai Nakaoka
- Subjects
chemistry.chemical_classification ,biology ,Glycoside ,Food composition data ,Allium sativum ,biology.organism_classification ,Enzyme ,Biochemistry ,chemistry ,Brassica oleracea ,Glycoside hydrolase ,Cultivar ,Food science ,Glucosaminidase ,Food Science - Abstract
For the first time, glycosidase (EC 3.2.2.) activity was applied to characterize and identify vegetables. To measure glycosidase activity in vegetables, 4-methylumbelliferyl (4MU) glycoside (Gly) was employed as the fluorescence enzyme substrate. By using either a cuvette-type or a 96-well micro-plate-type fluorescence reader, 7 kinds of glycosidase, including α- d -glucosidase (α-Glc-ase), β- d -glucosidase (β-Glc-ase), β- d -galactosidase (Gal-ase), α- d -mannnosidase (Man-ase), N-acetyl-β- d -glucosaminidase (GlcNAc-ase), β- d -glucuronidase (GA-ase) and β- d -xylosidase (Xyl-ase) were measured by incubating extracts of vegetables in the presence of 4MU-Gly at pH 6.0 for 60 min at 38 °C. After optimizing, both methods were applied to food matrices that included 10 different vegetables. Results of the application to both domestic and imported garlic ( Allium sativum ) and broccoli ( Brassica oleracea var. italica ), revealed that the glycosidase activities of Man-ase and GlcNAc-ase showed significant differences ( p n = 10) between domestic and imported varieties for both vegetables. Furthermore, the glycosidase activities in 30 heads of cabbage ( B. oleracea L. var. capitata ) itemized into 6 different cultivars were measured, and each profile was analyzed by employing a multivariate analysis. The results of their chemometric analyses showed that 29 out of 30 heads of cabbage were simultaneously and correctly discriminated into 6 different cultivars.
- Published
- 2012