Abstract

Agricultural wastes are renewable source of energy that can be degraded by the biological treatment methods. The utilization of these wastes in bioprocesses do not only provides alternative substrates, but also helps in solving pollution problems. White rot fungi have been used successfully in the solid state fermentation for ligninolytic enzyme production. Due to the important role of tryptophan as one of the essential amino acids in the microbial protein, it thus becomes necessary to determine the amount of tryptophan by an effective and practical method. In this study wheat straw was treated with heat at 100°C under alkaline condition. Then microbial protein was produced by cultivation of Pleurotus florida as white rot fungi using Solid State Fermentation. The tryptophan analysis was done by alkaline hydrolyses with Ba(OH)₂, 4 Normal at 110°C for 48 h of the extracted protein, then the tryptophan was detected by A-200 amino nova analyzer. The results obtained by this method showed that the amount of Tryptophan was 0.96 g/100 g of the extracted protein, indicating the fact that its feed components have a good nutritious value. The produced single cell protein can therefore be a suitable replacement for animal feed.

Key words: Essential amino acid, microbial protein, wheat straw, Pleurotus, animal feed.