Review on Phorbol Ester Degradation of Jatropha Seed Cake for Its Use as Animal Feed

Abstract

<em>Jatropha curcas</em> is an oil-seed plant with good adaptability to grow in unfavourable conditions like infertile soil with scanty rainfall. It had been exploited for the extraction of oil for bio-diesel. The compressed seed cake, after the oil extraction, is a rich source of protein with certain toxic and anti-nutritional factors. The major toxins in the seed cake are phorbol esters and trypsin inhibitors that lead to various health problems if ingested. Even though the application of the various extracts carries a lot of beneficial advantages, yet the toxicity in oil and the compressed cake does not allow the by-products and the oil to be used elsewhere. Various physicochemical and biological methods have been described for the detoxification of <em>Jatropha</em> seed cake and oil of which the chemical extraction with methanol and ethanol have shown promising results in reducing the toxin contents by 97-100% while UV-irradiation reduced the phorbol esters completely. Submerged fermentation by<em> Bacillus</em> sp. achieved complete detoxification of phorbol esters within a week. A new strain was found to degrade the phorbol esters to phorbol, myristic acid and acetic acid within 12 h of incubation in submerged fermentation process. The detoxified products, in future, can be used as animal feed and food supplement to help utilize the by-products as a healthy diet.

Identification of Acid Hydrolysis Metabolites of the Pimelea Toxin Simplexin for Targeted UPLC-MS/MS Analysis

“…Phorbol esters present in J. curcas are structurally similar to simplexin but lack the epoxide and orthoester functionalities. Considerable success has been achieved in the detoxification of Jatropha seed cake for its use as animal feed by both physico-chemical and biological treatments [ 25 ]. Pseudomonas strains were reported to be particularly successful in detoxifying by hydrolysing the esters of phorbol esters [ 10 , 26 , 27 ].…”

Phorbol ester degradation using chemical treatment in jatropha kernel meal

“…If jatropha kernel meal is detoxified, it could be an excellent protein source. Several methods have been tried for detoxifying kernel meal that includes physical, chemical and biological methods [5] .…”