08-29-01 19:33
No 208480
Just some info for all yous in the know-
Here are some plants with tryptophan from http://www.ars-grin.gov:
Oenothera biennis L. -- Evening-Primrose; 2,400 - 16,000 ppm in Seed;
Helianthus annuus L. -- Girasol, Sunflower; 7,037 - 15,900 ppm in Seed;
Psophocarpus tetragonolobus (L.) DC. -- Asparagus Pea, Goa Bean, Winged Bean; 7,620 - 8,313 ppm in Seed;
Lablab purpureus (L.) SWEET -- Bonavist Bean, Hyacinth Bean, Lablab Bean; 880 - 7,255 ppm in Seed;
Moringa oleifera LAM. -- Ben Nut, Benzolive Tree, Drumstick Tree, Horseradish Tree, Jacinto (Sp.), Moringa, West
Indian Ben; 1,440 - 6,745 ppm in Shoot USA;
Nasturtium officinale R. BR. -- Berro, Watercress; 300 - 6,000 ppm in Herb;
Psophocarpus tetragonolobus (L.) DC. -- Asparagus Pea, Goa Bean, Winged Bean; 2,520 - 5,915 ppm in Tuber;
Sinapis alba L. -- White Mustard; 5,260 - 5,628 ppm in Seed;
Cucurbita foetidissima HBK. -- Buffalo Gourd; 1,840 - 5,472 ppm in Seed JEL EB32:87;
Psophocarpus tetragonolobus (L.) DC. -- Asparagus Pea, Goa Bean, Winged Bean; 1,160 - 5,011 ppm in Leaf;
Cicer arietinum L. -- Chickpea, Garbanzo; 1,850 - 4,970 ppm in Seed;
Sesamum indicum L. -- Ajonjoli (Sp.), Beni, Benneseed, Sesame, Sesamo (Sp.); 2,010 - 4,969 ppm in Seed;
Phaseolus vulgaris subsp. var. vulgaris -- Black Bean, Dwarf Bean, Field Bean, Flageolet Bean, French Bean,
Garden Bean, Green Bean, Haricot, Haricot Bean, Haricot Vert, Kidney Bean, Navy Bean, Pop Bean, Popping Bean,
Snap Bean, String Bean, Wax Bean; 440 - 4,731 ppm in Sprout Seedling;
Spinacia oleracea L. -- Spinach; 390 - 4,632 ppm in Plant;
Cucurbita pepo L. -- Pumpkin; 4,310 - 4,630 ppm in Seed;
Trigonella foenum-graecum L. -- Alholva (Sp.), Bockshornklee (Ger.), Fenugreek, Greek Clover, Greek Hay;
2,800 - 4,300 ppm in Seed;
Basella alba L. -- Vinespinach; 280 - 4,060 ppm in Leaf;
Corchorus olitorius L. -- Jew's Mallow, Mulukiya, Nalta Jute; 300 - 4,000 ppm in Leaf;
Brassica nigra (L.) W. D. J. KOCH -- Black Mustard; 270 - 3,976 ppm in Leaf;
Vigna radiata (L.) WILCZEK -- Green Gram, Mungbean; 370 - 3,886 ppm in Sprout Seedling;
Allium schoenoprasum L. -- Chives; 310 - 3,875 ppm in Leaf;
Asparagus officinalis L. -- Asparagus; 300 - 3,871 ppm in Shoot;
Juglans cinerea L. -- Butternut; 3,660 - 3,786 ppm in Seed;
Prunus dulcis (MILLER) D. A. WEBB -- Almond; 3,580 - 3,745 ppm in Seed;
Amaranthus sp. -- Pigweed; 310 - 3,729 ppm in Leaf;
Eryngium creticus -- Cretan culantro; 3,715 ppm in Shoot JEL;
Cichorium intybus L. -- Chicory, Succory, Witloof; 180 - 3,672 ppm in Leaf;
Valerianella locusta (L.) LATERRADE -- Corn Salad, Lamb's Lettuce; 260 - 3,610 ppm in Plant;
Portulaca oleracea L. -- Purslane, Verdolaga; 160 - 3,400 ppm in Herb;
Brassica oleracea var. botrytis l. var. botrytis L. -- Cauliflower; 260 - 3,360 ppm in Flower;
Here are some plants with tryptamine in them from the same website: (The parts per million weren't listed for tryptamine however, so I do not know if the tryptamine content is worth while to extract)
Lycopersicon esculentum MILLER -- Tomato; in Fruit;
Mucuna pruriens (L.) DC. -- Cowage, Velvetbean; in Seed;
Prosopis juliflora (SW.) DC. -- Mesquite; in Plant; Also contains 5-hydoxytryptamine in plant
Prunus domestica L. -- Plum; in Fruit;
Solanum melongena L. -- Aubergine, Eggplant; in Fruit;
Tecoma stans (L.) HBK -- Yellow Elder; in Plant;
(Ubiquitous Precursor Medal Winner)
08-30-01 02:59
No 208589
The greatest of these is the sunflower seed, up to 1.6% by weight tryptophan. Now extracting amino acids is a bit touchy and delicate, almost tedious. Aren't they least soluble at their isoelectronic point? But this is intruiging, because occurance of a plant on this tryptophan list may imply that tryptophan is present as the free amino acid, rather than being bound up in a slew of peptide linkages, e.g. as a polypeptide or a (shudder) protein. Does anyone else share this interpretation??
Should this be the case, Jim, you may really be on to something. Here is why: that (free) tryptophan might be, in my guessing opinion, the only UV-fluorescent compound present in sunflower seed meal. Thus elution of its band by preparative column chromatography would bee no trick, no trick at all, just switch off the lights and beam the black light on your column. Bingo, pure l-tryptophan in minutes! Does that tickle your fancy?
Edit: BTW for the chromatography, I wouldn't think of putting any water in to dissolve the components. An alcohol, maybe, as part of a polar/nonpolar solvent pair, but my own chemistry experience has led me to an irrational antipathy for letting water get into things.
turning science fact into <<science fiction>>
(Hive Addict)
08-30-01 04:01
No 208599
You can buy it from completely inconspicuous sources
Do Your Part To Win The War
(Ubiquitous Precursor Medal Winner)
08-30-01 05:05
No 208613
1.) Buying shit is not as much fun as making shit.
2.) Buying shit introduces other-related complexities. To varying degrees, this removes some aspect of your expectation from your own control, and puts control into the hands of others unknown to you.
3.) Buying shit you can make is existentially dissatisfactory. You have traded off a potential to use your own unique capability to make this shit, for your unremarkable, undistinguished common ability to make money, which any idiot can do, and exchange it for merchandise, which any idiot can do.
4.) Buying shit means you are allowing, requiring, encouraging someone else to make that shit for you. It places you in the position of participating in the alienation of your person from direct interchange with the material substances and items which make up the world, into the marketplace, a socially generated abstraction which consists only of contact within humanity, and not with other aspects of the natural environment.
That may be a little unclear, so I will attempt to obfuscate for you. In the mercantile economy, you are abstracted by several degrees from the desired concrete realities. The concrete realities are yourself, and the substance you want. The abstractions are the marketplace, your job, the periodic paycheck, your bank, the monetary system, the merchant corporation, your credit card account, sales tax, the government which that sales tax supports, the delivery system by which you expect the substance to reach you, and a lot of other things which are not directly related to yourself and that substance.
5.) Buying l-tryptophan is expensive. Buying sunflower seeds is cheap. Assuming you have to buy, hence to involve yourself in that plethora of unhealthy and unfriendly abstraction, it makes more sense to buy something cheap, which will minimize your exposure to mercantile contamination.
turning science fact into <<science fiction>>
(Hive Addict)
08-30-01 05:18
No 208616
One two many doses halfapint?
I like your homemade philosophy however there comes a point when it makes no sense. Are you makeing your acetone and DCM at home?? My time is worth money and tryptophan is really pretty cheap considering the bitch of a time you will have extracting and purifying it from sunflower seeds. Not to mention the expense of solvents ect. There comes a point when common sense must prevail. How are you even going to prove you have tryptophan and purity?
I'll spend my $60 and buy it anyday. It will arouse no suspicion if your experimenting at a "personal" level. If you want to supply the world then thats another story. If you need the totally inconspicous source then PM me and i'll tell ya. This source is not in the "research chems" bizness they are completly unrelated.
At some point you must accept things as they are.
Later
Foxy
Do Your Part To Win The War
(Master Searcher)
08-30-01 16:14
No 208793
Don't you have to use short wave UV for the chromatography? Black light is long wave UV.
http://www.geocities.com/dritte123/PSPF.
(Chief Bee)
08-30-01 16:19
No 208795
It depends on the compound. Many things are visible in ordinary blacklight, but some require short wave UV.
(Ubiquitous Precursor Medal Winner)
08-31-01 08:07
No 208981
Aw come on, Foxy! You are taking far too immediate a view of this matter. (Let's not say, short-sighted.) First of all, don't tell me that this black light column is not a snazzy way to isolate tryptophan from sunflower seed extract, swiftly, easily, cleanly, and quantitatively! I know it is.
Then there's the economic factor. What you want to bet, that 1.6% by weight of $60 worth of bulk raw sunflower seeds, however much that is, won't give you more than $60 worth of tryptophan? Betcha. You think that commercial tryptophan was purified by column chromotagraphy? Might have been, might not. Even chances that the stuff you "made" is more pure than the stuff you might have bought.
That ain't the point. The point is, after you do this, you will know how to do it. Your experience, your confidence in your new capability, is going to be worth a heap more to you than sixty bucks. Then you will know you are able to separate out the tryptophan quantitatively from any given protein hydrolysate, in a matter of minutes. The world ain't made of sunflower seeds, and this ain't your last rodeo.
That doesn't exhaust the advantages of this procedure. Since the fluorescence is characteristic of the indole nucleus itself, you might suppose there are some more general applications for this technique. I used it to separate ergotamine from morning glory seeds. Long wave UV, plain old black light, makes indole containing compounds quite visible through polycarbonate or borosilicate glass, though the contrast might be better through soda-lime glass. So what about when somebody next hands you a pound of Australian acacia wattle bark, and asks you if it has any tryptamines in it? Phalaris grass, in which the low concentration makes conventional extraction all but unproductive? This gives you a quantitative answer. You can say, yeah, it had this much tryptamines in it, and here they are, sorted into little bottles by chemical species. Tell me that's not worth sixty bucks to you.
turning science fact into <<science fiction>>
(Hive Bee)
09-01-01 15:03
No 209357
I thought that l-tryptophan was illegal in the USA due to some bullshit with seizures about 10 years ago.
I also thought that tryptamine was a watched chemical in the USA.
(Hive Addict)
09-01-01 16:46
No 209380
Yes, I believe that the FDA, due to their animosity towards OTC nutritional supplements, banned tryptophan as an OTC nutritional supplement after a bad batch from the Japanese manufacturer killed or seriously injured some people by causing a blood disorder call eosinophillia.
(Hive Addict)
09-01-01 22:01
No 209420
that had nothing to do with the tryptophan though- some other chemical or adulterant
(Hive Bee)
09-02-01 09:57
No 209504
However, tryptophan is still illegal in the USA correct? And Tryptamine is still watched, right?
(Chief Bee)
09-02-01 10:03
No 209506
Tryptophan is only illegal to sell for human consumption, but not for animals, or as a chemical in its own right.
(Hive Addict)
09-03-01 19:13
No 209871
Ok halfapint
You make some valid points. It all depends on your goals.
Learning is a good one.
Do Your Part To Win The War