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Study of Selenium Distribution in the Protein Fractions of the Brazil Nut, Bertholletia excelsa

2004; American Chemical Society; Volume: 52; Issue: 13 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1021/jf049643e

1520-5118

Thavarith Chunhieng, Konstantinos Pétritis, Claire Elfakir, José Brochier, Thierry Goli, Didier Montēt,

Muscle metabolism and nutrition

The high selenium content of the Brazil nut, Bertholletia excelsa, makes this seed a healthy food qualified as an antiradical protector. The studied nut contained 126 ppm of selenium. Selenium was found to be distributed in the nut protein fractions. The water-extracted fraction, which represented 17.7% of the cake protein, was the richest in selenium with 153 ppm. Analysis by HPLC-MS showed that selenium was linked by a covalent bond to two amino acids to form selenomethionine and selenocystine. The selenomethionine represented a little less than 1% of the total amount of methionine. Keywords: Brazil nut; Bertholletia excelsa; protein; selenium; covalent bonds