Biodistribution of iron and zinc in peanuts: Analysis of biomolecular fractions

Department of Chemistry, The University of Burdwan, Burdwan-713 104, West Bengal, India Department of Chemistry, University of Calcutta, 92, Acharya Prafulla Chandra Road, Kolkata-700 009, India E-mail: kamalchem.roy@gmail.com Manuscript received 01 February 2018, revised 27 February 2018, accepted 28 February 2018 Peanuts are good source of plant proteins for human beings. Peanuts are also rich in iron and zinc. Iron is one of the essential macro elements for human body, whereas zinc is an essential micro element for brain development and enzymatic actions. In this work peanut proteins have been extracted and purified. A brief study has also been done on total iron and zinc content of peanut using atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS). Different protein fractions of peanut have been analyzed for their iron and zinc content and compared with total protein bound metal species. The concentrations of the free metals have been studied as well. Results indicated that peanuts are rich sources of these essential elements and have a distribution in various molecular fractions of it. These results may be useful to researches concerned with the food industry where various food components are processed to meet different dietary requirements