TABLE OF CONTENT
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 INTRODUCTION
1.2 MOISTURE CONTENT
1.3 CARBOHYDRATES
1.3aCalvin cycle
1.4PROTEINS
1.5RUDE ASH
1.6FAT AND FIBRE
1.7 AIM OF THE RESEARCH WORK
CHAPTER
TWO
2.1 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.2 PHYSICAL QUALITIES OF SIMAROUBA GLAUCA:
2.3 MEDICINAL IMPORTANCE OF SIMAROUBA
GLAUCA:
2.4 BIOFUEL PRODUCTION:
2.5 CONSTITUENTS OF SIMAROUBA SEEDS:
CHAPTER THREE
3.1 MATERIALS AND METHODOLOGY
MATERIALS
PLANT
3.2 CHEMICALS/REAGENTS
3.3
APPARATUS
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULT
PROXIMATE ANALYSIS ON SIMAROUBA LEAF AND ROOT
EXTRACT
CHAPTER FIVE
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
DISCUSSION
CONCLUSSION
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Plants undergo
photosynthesis and they constitute a primary resource of carbon, vitamins,
minerals, protein, essential fatty acids, and utilizable energy for food
production (Young and Pelett, 1994). Plants have played a significant role in
maintaining the health and improving the quality of human life for thousands of
years. (Mishra, 2010). They provide a
major source of food and nourishment for man and animal.
Nutrition is a science
of food and its relationship to health. Nutrition refers to nourishment that
sustains life. The study of nutrient requirements and the diet providing these
requirements is also known as ‘nutrition’ (Chutani, 2008). Pike and Brown, 1984
defined it as “the science that interprets the relationship of food to the
functioning of living organism. It includes the uptake of food, liberation of
energy, elimination of wastes and all the processes of synthesis essential for
maintenance, growth and reproduction (Chutani, 2008). Apart from maintaining normal body
functioning, nutrition is important in fighting infections and in the
recuperation of an ill person. Nutrition interacts with infections in a
synergistic manner, such that recurrent infections lead to a loss of body
nitrogen and worsen nutritional status; theresulting malnutrition, in its turn,
produces a greater susceptibility to infection (Kurpad, 2005). Aristotle
(384-322 B.C.) was the first to suggest that the composition of foods in the
normal diet might contribute to health.
In an 1897 literature
on metabolic investigations, Atwater divided food composition into five
classes; protein, fat carbohydrate, energy and water. However, today, proximate
composition is the term usually used to describe six components of food namely;
moisture, crude protein, crude ash,crude fibre, crude fat and carbohydrate
(nitrogen free extract) which are all expressed in percentage (%) or gram per
100 grams (g/100g). The study of proximate analysis on foods was devised over a
hundred years ago by two German scientists, Henneberg and Stohmann, and even
though new techniques have been introduced, their system of proximate still
forms the basis for the statutory declaration of the composition of foods.
(Dublecz, 2011).
1.2 MOISTURE CONTENT
Water is essential for
every living organism. In the human body, water content ranges from 50- 70% in
different tissues. It is present in different fluid compartments of the human
body- Intracellular (fluid inside the cells) and extra cellular. Plasma,
interstitial fluid, cerebrospinal fluid, ocular fluid, lymph, peritoneal,
pericardial, pleural and synovial fluids are part of the extra cellular fluid
(Chutani, 2008). However, the moisture
content of a feed is seldom of interest nutritionally as water is usually taken
on its own.
The active ingredients
from the view of feed nutrition are present in the part of dry matter (solid
matter); therefore the level of moisture content is an important factor in both
economy and storage (Famic). At high
temperature and humidity the risk of
putrefaction is predicted due to the proliferation of molds, etc., or
self-digestion by enzymes in the feed when moisture in the feed is not less
than about 15 %. As the assay for
moisture in the feed measures loss on drying by heating at normal pressure as
moisture, the result includes most of volatile substances other than H2O. Therefore, it may be more appropriate to be
referred to as volatile matter rather than moisture for accuracy. Organic acids such as acetic acid and butyric
acid in silage as well as ammonia and flavor components in feed materials are
also vaporized and thus measured as moisture.
Because the content of these in most feed is extremely low, there has
hardly been a need to consider their influence on the measured value. (Famic)
1.3 CARBOHYDRATES
Photosynthesis is a
process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy from the
sun, into chemical energy that can be later released to fuel the organisms'
activities. The light energy harnessed from the sun drives the reduction of
carbon from CO2 to produce O2 and fixed carbon in form of carbohydrate.
Early in the twentieth
century, it was mistakenly thought that light absorbed by photosynthetic
pigments directly reduced CO2 which then combined with water to form
carbohydrate. In fact, photosynthesis in plants is a two stage process in which
light energy is harnessed to oxidise H2O:
2H2O → O2 + 4 [H+]
The electrons thereby
obtained subsequently reduce CO2:
4 [H2O] + CO2 → (CH2O)
+ H2O
The two stages of
photosynthesis are traditionally referred to as the light reactions and the
dark reactions:
1. In the light reactions, specialised pigment
molecules capture light energy and are thereby oxidized. A series of electron-
transfer reactions which culminate with the reduction of NADP+ to
NADPH, generate ATP from ADP + Pi. The oxidised pigment molecules are reduced
to H2O, thereby generating O2.
2. The dark reactions use NADPH and ATP to reduce
CO2 and incorporate it into the three-carbon precursors of
carbohydrate.
The light reactions
takes place in the thylakoid membrane of chloroplasts in leafs and green parts
of plants. The inside of the thylakoid
is referred to as the lumen. The light reactions are catalysed by enzymes located
in the thylakoid membrane, whereas the dark reactions take place in the stroma.
The principal photoreceptor of light is chlorophyll. These chlorophyll
molecules do not participate directly in photochemical reactions but function
to act as light harvesting antennas. The absorbed photons are transferred from
molecule to molecule until it reaches the photosynthetic reaction centre.
In the respiratory
chain, electrons flow from NADH+H+ to O2, with the production of
water and energy. However in photosynthesis, electrons are taken up from water
and transferred to NADP+, with an expenditure of energy.
Photosynthetic electron transport is therefore energetically “uphill work.” To
make this possible, the transport is stimulated at two points by the absorption
of light energy. This occurs through two photo systems protein complexes that
contain large numbers of chlorophyll molecules and other pigments Another
component of the transport chain is the cytochrome bf complex, an
aggregate of integral membrane proteins that includes two cytochromes (b563 and
f). Plastoquinone, which is comparable to ubiquinone, and two soluble proteins,
the copper containing plastocyanin and ferredoxin, function as mobile electron
carriers. At the end of the chain, there is an enzyme that transfers the electrons
to NADP+. Because photosystem II and the cytochrome b/f complex
release protons from reduced plastoquinone into the lumen, photosynthetic
electron transport establishes an electrochemical gradient across the thylakoid
membrane, which is used for ATP synthesis by an ATP synthase.
ATP and NADPH+H+,
which are both needed for the dark reactions, are formed in the stroma. (Voet et. al., 2013).
1.3aCalvin cycle
The actual CO2 fixation i.e., the
incorporation of CO2 into an organic compound is catalysed by ribulosebisphosphate
carboxylase/oxygenase (“rubisco”). Rubisco, the most abundant enzyme on Earth,
converts ribulose 1,5-bis-phosphate, CO2 and water into two
molecules of 3-phosphoglycerate. These are then converted, via
1,3-bisphosphoglycerate and 3-phosphoglycerate, into glyceraldehyde
3-phosphate. In this way, 1,2-glyceraldehyde 3-phosphates are synthesized from
six CO2. Two molecules of this intermediate are used by
gluconeogenesis reactions to synthesize glucose 6-phosphate. From the remaining
10 molecules, six molecules of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate are regenerated, and
the cycle then starts over again. In the Calvin cycle, ATP is required for
phosphorylation of 3-phosphoglycerate and ribulose-5-phosphate. NADPH+H+,
the second product of the light reaction, is consumed in the reduction of
1,3-bisphosphoglycerate to glyceraldehyde-3- phosphate.
Carbohydrates are the most abundant
biomolecules produced on earth; photosynthetic plants and algae convert over
100 billion metric tons of Co2 and water into sugars, starches, and cellulose
like substance. Carbohydrates supply energy for the human body to function.
They are the most abundant bulk nutrients and form the major source of
biological energy through their oxidation in the tissues. They also furnish
organic precursors for the biosynthesis of many cell components. Carbohydrates
are not essential in the human diet, but because carbohydrate rich foods are
abundant and cheap, compared with fats and protein, they naturally form a major
part of the diet in most of the world. (Voet et. al., 2013).
1.4PROTEINS
The requirements for total protein, at various
stages during the life cycle of humans, were reviewed and evaluated by a joint
panel of the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Health Organization,
and the United Nations University (FAO/ WHO/UNO) .
The requirement for dietary protein consists
of two components:
1) the
requirement for the nutritionally indispensable amino acids (histidine,
isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan,
and valine) under all conditions and for conditionally indispensable amino
acids (cysteine, tyrosine, taurine, glycine, arginine, glutamine, proline)
under specific physiological and pathological conditions and
2) the requirement for nonspecific nitrogen for
the synthesis of the nutritionally dispensable amino acids (aspartic acid,
asparagine, glutamic acid, alanine, serine) and other physiologically important
nitrogen-containing compounds such as nucleic acids, creatine, and porphyrins.
With respect to the first component, it is
usually accepted that the nutritive values of various food protein sources are
to a large extent determined by the concentration and availability of the
individual indispensable amino acids. Hence, the efficiency with which a given
source of food protein is utilized in support of an adequate state of
nutritional health depends both on the physiological requirements for the
indispensable amino acids and total nitrogen and on the concentration of
specific amino acids in the source of interest (Young and Pelett, 1994).
Proteins, are synthesized from a complex
series of steps which involves the transcription of DNA already present in each
cell of an organism, and its consequent transcription into a polypeptide chain.
This chain is modified by other inherent mechanisms in the cell to yield
protein.
1.5RUDE ASH
Ash is the inorganic
residue remaining after the water and organic matter have been removed by
heating in the presence of oxidizing agents, which provides a measure of the
total amount of minerals within a food. The ash content is a measure of the total amount of minerals present
within a food. Minerals are required for many purposes like forming the frame
and rigid structure of the body, as part of the body/cell fluids and for number
of cellular and sub cellular physiological functions (Chutani, 2008). The mineral
content includes specific inorganic components present within a food,
such as Ca, Na, K and Cl. Determination of the ash and mineral content of foods
is important for a number of reasons. The most important reason in regards a
plant like S. glauca is the nutritional importance. Some minerals are
essential to a healthy diet (e.g., calcium, phosphorous, potassium and
sodium) whereas others can be toxic (e.g., lead, mercury, cadmium and
aluminum).
1.6FAT AND FIBRE
The importance of fat
and fiber in nutrition cannot be underestimated. Crude fat contains fat,
complex lipid, sterols, fatty acids and fat soluble dyes; while crude fiber
contains cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin.
1.7 AIM OF THE RESEARCH WORK
This study is designed to screen the proximate
constituents of the leaf extracts of Simarouba
glauca which includes moisture, protein, carbohydrates, ash fibre and lipid
content of Simarouba glauca. In addition
to this, to determine the quantitative carbohydrate and amino-acid constituents
of Simarouba glauca. Thus, the
nutritional value of Simarouba roots and leafs with some emphasis on their
possible use both as a medicinal and nutritional food for the sick or
convalescent.
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