ESTIMATION OF IN VITRO DRY MATTER SOLUBILITY AND PROTEIN DIGESTIBILITY OF BARLEY GRAINS

Rodica Căpriţă, A. Căpriţă, Iuliana Creţescu, Georgeta Ursulescu, Valeria Nicu

Abstract
The biological availability of nutrients is of great importance in formulating a balanced ration to attain maximum productivity in animals. In vitro digestibility techniques are useful to provide a quick, inexpensive, and precise prediction of in vivo amino acid and protein digestibility for humans and animals. The objectives of the present study were to determine the in vitro dry matter solubility (DMS) and protein digestibility (PD) of barley grains. Two experiments were conducted: experiment 1 simulated gastric digestion and experiment 2 simulated gastric and small intestinal digestion. DMS in gastric digestion showed an increase with the incubation time. DMS of barley grains ranged in experiment 1 from 0.1067 g/g at 30 minutes digestion time, to 0.1475 g/g at 120 minutes digestion time. Samples showed higher DMS and PD after pepsin-pancreatin digestion than after pepsin digestion. DMS increased with 19.22% and PD increased with 16.18% when pepsin digestion was followed by 240 minutes intestinal digestion.

Key words: dry matter solubility, in vitro digestion, protein digestibility, barley