Research was performed on peanut samples from various places to determine the amino acid content in relation to good or bad quality of the peanut. In-depth research has never been done on peanuts to find the specific amino acid amounts that affect their quality. The objectives were to find these amino acids and find the correlation between their amounts and the quality of the peanuts they produce.

A HPLC with a Multi-Wavelength Fluorescence Detector was used to determine the amounts of amino acids in each sample. A given protocol was followed for derivatizing the samples, which gave the amino acids in a soluble form. The samples were derivatized in triplicates, and then ran through the HPLC for analysis in duplicates of each triplicate to produce sound, reproducible results.

The results were then put into graphs to show the amino acid content and to compare the amino acid contents of different types of peanuts. These results compared Georgia peanuts, West Texas peanuts, paste samples, and Nitrogen study samples in one study and two samples from the Peanut Foundation in the second study. It was found that there are three amino acids that have an effect on peanut quality in both of the experiments—Argenine/Threonine and Glutamate.

It is concluded that this is important information to further research done on peanuts and to put together a complete “peanut profile” with these amino acids and results from other tests done in the Biochemistry Research Lab at Lubbock Christian University.