Merit Research Journal of Agricultural Science and Soil Science

042-047

Authors: Mohamed B. Atta and Gehad M. El-Shenawi

Due to the severe shortage of animal protein, especially in developed countries, research has focused on providing new sources of plant proteins for the lack of this gap. On the other hand, industrial citrus processing creates large quantities of waste which have an adverse environmental impact. So, this work was performed to valorized bitter orange seed proteins including its functional properties and amino acid composition as a source of edible plant protein. The results revealed that foam capacity of bitter orange seed flour (BOSF) proteins was better at acidic medium (pH4), while, its stability was better at natural medium (pH7). Also, emulsion, water holding and oil holding capacities of BOSF were 15.5 ml/g, 2.6 ml/g and 2.1 ml/g. Moreover, good gel was formed at 10% (w/v) of heated and defatted BOSF. Crude protein and nitrogen protein content were 17.9% and 12.96%, respectively. Protein solubility, digestibility and amino acids composition of protein were also determined to evaluate the protein quality. The first limiting amino acid was Lysine 48.8% and second limiting amino acid was Isoleucine 77.1% comparing with reference protein. The protein efficiency ratio (PER) was 1.1. Keywords: Bitter orange seed, Functional properties, Nitrogenous compounds, Amino acids composition