Amino acid profile of four earthworms species from Nigeria

摘要

The amino acid profile of four species of earthworms from Nigeria namely Eudrilus eugeniae, Hyperiodrilus africanus, Alma millsoni and Libyodrilus violaceus were evaluated in this study. The amino acid analysis was conducted using the High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) specifically the Technichon TSM-1 (technosequential multisample) analyser for amino acid. Nin e e sse n t ia l namely Lysine, Histidine, Arginine, Threonine, Valine, Methionine, Isoleucine, Leucine and Phebylalanine and eight non-essential amino acids namely Aspartic acid, Serine, Glutamic acid, Proline, Glycine, Alanine, Cystine and Tyrosine were recorded in this study. Cystine with a range of 0.64-0.80 g/100kg protein had the least concentration while Glutamic acid with a range of 11.50-13.22 g/100kg protein was the highest. Lysine and methionine, which were limiting amino acids in most feedstuffs, were present in all the earthworm species and ranges from 4.95-5.70 g/100g protein for lysine and 2.08-2.30 g/100g protein for methionine