Published Paper Details:

ABSTRACT The present paper deals with the detection of amino acids in the seed extracts of Bitter Gourd. Bitter Gourd is a good source of medicines and proteins. Bitter gourd has been used in various traditional medicine systems for a long time, for preventing and treating various diseases. Its fruits and pulp are used in treating asthma, constipation, colic, diabetes, inflammation, skin diseases etc. 5 g of germinated seeds were grinded in 25ml. of 80% alcohol in mortar and pestle. The tissue homogenate was centrifuged at 7000 rpm for 15min.After centrifugation the supernatant was filtered and evaporated on water bath followed by addition of 1ml of distilled water to the dried filtrate. Now a drop of extract was spotted slowly to the chromatographic paper which was placed in chromatographic jar containing solvent (n-butanol: acetic acid: water-4:1:5) for its movement. When the solvent reached near the top, the paper was taken out from the jar, dried and sprayed uniformly 0.1% ninhydrin with the help of atomizer. The paper was dried in an oven at 900c for 5 minutes. Coloured spots of amino acids appeared on the chromatogram and the identification of the amino acids was confirmed with their Rf values. On the basis of Rf value and colour, five amino acids namely Leucine, valine, ornithin, Arginine and phenylalanine were detected in the seed extract of Bitter Gourd.