Abstract

ORTIZ DE BERTORELLI, Ligia; MALDONADO, Henry; PARRA, Pablo  and  GRAZIANI DE FARINAS, Lucía. ELECTROPHORETIC CHARACTERIZATION OF GLOBULINS FROM FERMENTED GRAINS OF THREE TYPES OF COCOA. INCI [online]. 2006, vol.31, n.6, pp.441-445. ISSN 0378-1844.

The globulins of the fermented grain of the criollo, forastero and trinitario cocoa types in the Cumboto area, Aragua state, Venezuela were characterized by electrophoresis. Pods from two plants, three fruits per plant, were harvested for each type of cocoa in El Paraíso, La Vega de Santa Cruz and La Isleta parcels. Healthy pods corresponding to each type of cocoa were manually flailed and underwent a fermentation process for a period of five days. The pulp was removed from the fermented grains, and the cotiledons were dried in an oven for 48h at 40ºC. This was followed by a grinding process. The globulins were extracted using 0.5M NaCl and were analyzed by unidimensional PAGE-SDS electrophoresis in a 20% poliacrilamide plate gel. The results revealed significant variations (p<0.05) in the protein contents of the degreased powder of the fermented grains corresponding to the different cocoa types (17.6%-20.3%) and the different parcels (17.5%-20.3%). The amount of globulins also differed between parcels (15.3%-30.4%). However, the values did not show a statistical differentiation between the types (16.8%-24.9%). The electrophoretical analysis of the globulins showed patterns with a total of 49 soft bands with a relative mobility ranging from 0.214 to 0.971, and molecular weights in between 79 and 13.8kDa, which varied between plants, cocoa types, and parcels.

Keywords : Electroforesis; Fermentación; Globulinas; Proteínas; Theobroma cacao L..