COMPARATIVE STUDY OF HYDROLYSIS PERFORMED WITH MODERN MICROWAVE TECHNIQUE AND THE TRADITIONAL METHOD

Proteins are vital to all cells in the body. They consist of long chains of amino acids. To be able to study the amino acid composition of a protein it is necessary to hydrolyse it, followed by separation and quantification. When the protein is hydrolysed, in this case ß-lactoglobulin, the protein is divided into individual amino acids. The method that traditionally has been used to hydrolyse proteins takes 24-72 hours to complete. Recently a new microwave heating technique was introduced. With the Ethos1 microwave oven it takes less than one hour to hydrolyse proteins. The objective of this study was to see if the result of the hydrolysis with the new microwave oven technique had the same quality as the previously used method. If the microwave technique can hydrolyse proteins with as good results as the old oven, then it will significantly reduce test turnaround times. The result of this study indicates that the microwave technique is just as reliable as the older method, and thus a good and time saving alternative