I am currently studying the affect of different host plants on caterpillar growth, development, and survivorship. I would like to analyze these host plants for nutritional content (protein, carbohydrates, lipids, and potentially defensive chemistries). Do you know of any methods that I could use to analyze these values or do you know a laboratory that I could send samples to that would analyze the plants for me?
In Food analysis, traditionally protein content of food plants is extimated using the so called Kjeldahl method. This is a decomposition using highly concentrate sulfuric acid. The resulting nitrogen content can be used to estimate the protein content (using specific factors).
There are several methods for the determination of protein content of plant tissues. the method of choice is using that of Lowery, which gives you the soluble protein, using egg albumin as slandered. my students use this method routinely. you could also use the nitrogen content of the plant tissue and multiply the nitrogen by a factor which is 6.25.although this factor may change with plant species.As for carbohydrates, there are several methods,the simplest one is that of Dobios et al, 1954, which we use routinely. you could , of course, use HPLC for the determination of carbohydrates. As for lipids, there are also several methods , it depends whether you are interested in just total lipids, or fatty acid composition.
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