Fatty Acid and Amino Acid Composition of the Seeds of Three Cultivars of the Tomato, Lycopersicon esculentum L.

Abstract

Fatty acids of the seed oils of 'Chico Grande', 'Rutgers', and 'Golden Jubilee' tomatoes, determined by gas liquid chromatography (GLC), showed no significant quantitative or qualitative differences among cultivars. The major fatty acids were linoleic, 58.0%; oleic, 19.9%; palmitic, 15.6% and stearic, 4.5%. Seven minor acids included linolenic, 1.8%; and trace amounts of myristic, myristoleic, palmitoleic, margaric, arachidic, and a 17 C acid not identified. Sixteen amino acids of the solvent extracted seed meals, determined by ion exchange chromatography, showed significant quantitative differences among the 3 cultivars in glutamic acid, glycine, tyrosine, arginine, and lysine. 'Golden Jubilee' seed meal protein contained 10. 22% lysine compared to 9 .23% for 'Rutgers', 9.04% for 'Chico Grande' and 7.63% for commercial soybean meal. The tomato seed meals were significantly different from the soybean meal in 10 of 16 amino acids. Soybean meal was higher in threonine, serine, and histidine than any of the tomato seed meals and higher than one of them in leucine and isoleucine. All the tomato seed meals and soybean meal were low in methionine.