Amino acid composition of pollen Pinus sylvestris L. and Pinus sibirica Du Tour growing in the Baikal region

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to determine the qualitative and quantitative amino acid composition of pollen Pinus sylvestris L. and Pinus sibirica Du Tour. Pine pollen was collected in June 2021 at natural sites on the southeastern coast of Lake Baikal. The mass fraction of crude protein was determined by the Kjeldahl method; the protein composition and individual amino acid content were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography with post-column modification of ninhydrin on an LA8080 automatic analyser (Hitachi, Japan). The crude protein content of the pollen was 14.38–15.94%. Pine pollen protein is shown to contain 17 amino acids, including 9 essential amino acids: valine, isoleucine, leucine, threonine, methionine, phenylalanine, lysine, histidine, and arginine. The content of the sum of amino acids was 141.4–156.5 mg/g, including essential amino acids 45.9-48.4%. The following amino acids are dominant in Pinus sylvestris and Pinus sibirica pollens (mg/g): monoaminodicarboxylic acids – glutamic (21.3–24.2) and aspartic (13.0–14.2), diaminocarboxylic acid arginine (17.0–17.4) and heterocyclic amino acid proline (14.7–16.2). The obtained results can be useful in the development of drugs and biologically active additives based on pollen Pinus sylvestris and Pinus sibirica, which, due to the presence of the above amino acids, have a nootropic, immunomodulatory, cardiac stimulating, and detoxifying effect.