19th Annual Student Research Conference
Science
Comparison of Methods for Total Starch Determination
Annna T. O'Brien
Dr. Mark Campbell, Faculty Mentor
Amylomaize corn is a high amylose (one of the two main starches found in corn) corn whose only public source is Truman State University. Commercially grown it is for a variety of food and non-food uses. We have been conducting laboratory and field studies to develop commercially acceptable hybrids. Accurate measurement of starch content is necessary to evaluate the suitability of these hybrids. We evaluated the total starch content of matching samples of Amylomaize using two methods: a commercially available kit (Total Starch Assay Procedure, Megazyme) based on a series of enzymatic reactions and a traditional method based on heating the samples in the presence of calcium chloride and measuring the glucose produced with a polarimeter. The data from these two methods were compared using a correlation analysis. We also compared the total starch to the amylose content of these same samples. This data will be discussed in the presentation.
Keywords: Maize, total starch, Polarimeter, magazyme
Topic(s):Agricultural Science
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 52-1
Location: VH 1408
Time: 2:45