Study on the purification and chemical compositions of tea glycoprotein

In this paper, improvement in the method for purifying glycoprotein from green tea (Camellia sinensis) was described; some properties and chemical compositions of tea glycoprotein (TGP) were determined by HPGPC, FT-IR, GC-MS technologies. Compared to existing methods, a more compatible method for purifying TGP was proposed. This method was faster, simpler, more effective and easier to be extended to the industrial production than the method that used in our previous work. The molecular weight of TGP was 126,513 Da using HPGPC. GC-MS analysis of TGP showed that TGP was composed of seven kinds of monosaccharides, namely ribose, rhamnose, arabinose, xylose, mannose, glucose, galactose in molar ratios of 1.71:5.88:13.70:1.99:1.00:1.84:33.75. Eighteen amino acids were identified in TGP by amino acid analysis. The FT-IR spectrum of the TGP revealed also typical characteristics of polysaccharides, protein and uronic acid. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.