Cereal Chem 58:113 - 115.  |  VIEW ARTICLE
Amino Acid Composition of the Cereal Tef and Related Species of Eragrostis (Gramineae).

R. N. Lester and E. Bekele. Copyright 1981 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

The amino acid composition of seed proteins was determined for 11 accessions of the Ethiopian cereal Eragrostis tef and for 10 accessions of related wild species (E. barrelieri, E. bicolor, E. cilianensis, E. curvula, E. diplachnoides, E. mexicana, E. minor, E. papposa, and E. pilosa). The 11 cultivars of tef were fairly similar to each other but quite distinct from the various wild species. In general, the wild species had smaller seeds and a higher proportion of protein, but the cultivated tef had more lysine. The amount of lysine in the protein was positively correlated with the amounts of glycine, arginine, aspartic acid, and threonine but negatively correlated with glutamic acid, isoleucine, leucine, and proline. The seeds of the wild species possibly contain more of a protein rich in glutamic acid but of little nutritional value.