Aygül KÜÇÜKGÜLMEZ, Mehmet ÇELİK

Amino acid composition of blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) from the North Eastern Mediterranean Sea

The amino acid composition in tissues (claw, breast meats and hepatopancreas) of the blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus, RATHBUN, 1896), caught off the North Eastern Mediterranean Sea (Turkey) were investigated. The amounts of the amino acid contents of the claw, breast meat and hepatopancreas of the blue crab were found to be significantly different. Glutamic acid was major amino acid in all parts of the blue crab. The total essential amino acids ranged from 7.24 to 7.83 g/ 100 g fresh wt. The ratios of essential to nonessential amino acids were reported. This ratio was the highest for hepatopancreas (1.03), followed by breast meat (0.83) and claw meat (0.78) respectively. Moreover, methionine and lysine amino acids, which are often limiting amino acids in staple foods, were found to be abundant in this species. Methionine was the highest in the hepatopancreas (3.38 g/100g protein) and lysine was the highest in the breast meat (6.82 g/100g protein). Amino acid results showed that protein contained nutritionally useful quantities of most of the essential amino acids.

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