Abstract:

Fatty acid and amino acid composition of Eucommia ulmoides Oliver seeds were analyzed using Soxhlet extraction followed by GC-MS and automatic amino acid analyzer, respectively. Eucommia ulmoides Oliver seeds comprised 35.5% oil and 11 fatty acids were identified in the oil, mainly including linolic acid (10.66%), oleic acid (16.9%), palmitic acid (6.03%), stearic acid (1.96%), and linolenic acid (63.15%), among which, unsaturated fatty acids were dominant with relative content as high as 91.26% and linolenic acid exhibited the highest content. A total of 25% protein was contained in Eucommia ulmoides Oliver seeds and the amino acid composition consisted of Asp, Glu, Ser, Arg, Gly, Thr, Pro, Ala, Val, Met, Ile, Leu, Phe, His, Lys, Tyr and Cys-Cys, among which, the contents of essential amino acids and semi-essential amino acids were higher, accounting for 33.6% and 11.2% of total amino acids, respectively. These results reveal a high utilization value of Eucommia ulmoides Oliver seeds as an exploitable source abundant in protein and unsaturated fatty acids.

Key words: Eucommia ulmoides Oliver, fatty acid, protein, amino acid