Nitrogen Availability Assay

The Nitrogen Availability Assay [376] consists of growth tests under defined conditions using mineral salts medium and organonitrogen compounds as sources of carbon and/or nitrogen. Probe molecules include quinoline, pyridine, carbazole, and porphyrin. Growth tests are performed using six conditions ... 

Because the heavy ethyleneamines are very complex materials, assays by titration in aqueous and nonaqueous media are often performed (151). The result is usually expressed as an amine number or amine value, a measure of the total basic nitrogen content of the product. Titrimetric procedures are also available to define primary, secondary, and tertiary amine content (152). 

TALDO deficiency can be confirmed in lymphoblasts, fibroblasts and in erythrocytes. These cells are incubated with ribose-5-phosphate, after which formation of transketolase and TALDO products are analysed by gas chromatography with nitrogen phosphorous detection by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry [8, 11]. A similar enzyme assay is available for RPI [2]. Confirmation of the gene defect can be performed by sequence analysis. Disease-causing mutations have been detected in all TALDO-deficient patients and in the RPI-deficient patient. 

The major advantage of using the urinary S R ratio as a phenotypic trait for assessing CYP2C19 activity is that the method is fairly robust with regard to any incompleteness of urine collection or noncompliance with respect to dose administration. This is because the R-enantiomer serves as an in vivo internal standard. On the other hand, the required enantiospecific assay uses chiral capillary column gas chromatography with a nitrogen-specific detector, and such instmmentation is not commonly available. For this reason, an alternative phenotypic trait measure based on the formation and urinary elimination of 4 -hydroxymephenytoin has also been frequently used. 

Laboratory tests such as urease activity, protein dispersibility index (PDI), nitrogen solubility index (NSI), thiamine, and water absorption have been found valuable in monitoring daily production for protein quality. But biological chick and/or rat assays are the only reliable means currently available for predetermining the nutritional value of whole soybean protein they must be conducted periodically to verify results of chemical tests (31). If whole soybeans are to be used in a mixture containing 20% or more soybean meal, 5% or more urea, and 20% or more molasses, or an equivalent mixture, and exposed to hot, humid storage conditions, it is advisable that the urease activity of the whole soybeans not exceed 0.12 increase in pH (31). Extruded or roasted soybeans properly treated for cattle to increase bypass protein should have urease values of less than 0.05 pH rise. A urease rise of 0.05-0.20 is an indication of proper treatment for swine and poultry. 

Many physicochemical assays are established to quantify the protein mass. It is determined by exploiting the extinction coefficient in optical density measurements or by colorimetric assays such as the Bradford, Lowry, bicinchoninic (BCA), and biuret assay [13, 14]. Albeit easy to perform, these colorimetric assays suffer from inaccuracies that are due to the use of inappropriate standards like bovine serum albumin. If relevant standards are not available, quantitative amino acid analysis [6], the (micro-)Kjeldahl nitrogen method [14, 15] or gravimetry as very accurate but time-consuming alternatives can be applied. 

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