Gum karaya, the exudate from trees of the genus Sterculia contains up to 1% of a proteinaceous component. Data are presented for the amino acid composition of commercial gum karaya samples and for reference specimens of the gum collected from Sterculia setigera trees in the Sudan and from Sterculia urens and Sterculia villosa trees in India. Aspartic acid is the major amino acid in all the samples studied. The next most abundant amino acids are leucine, glutamic acid and proline in S. setigera gum; valine, leucine, proline and serine in S. urens gum, and valine, proline, glutamic acid, glycine and threonine in S. villosa gum. There are therefore considerable differences between the amino acid compositions of the gums from these Sterculia spp., which do not differ greatly in terms of their polysaccharide analytical parameters. The amino acid profile for gum karaya differs greatly from those for gum arabic and for guar gum. The data presented may be useful for extending the current specifications for purity and identity of gum karaya, at present based solely on polysaccharide parameters.
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Anderson et al. (1985) studied this question.
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