Molecular discoveries in coconut water

With a growing demand for virgin coconut oil (VCO) in the world market, a drastic increase in VCO by products, like coconut water, are being disposed of inefficiently in the environment, posing a major distillery problem. This study focuses on the molecular properties and characteristics of coconut water (CW) and proposes the possible uses for commercial applications. An extraction protocol for free nucleic acids (FNA) was initially developed using water from coconut of leaf ranks (LR) 14 to 22. FNA were precipitated through the addition of absolute ethanol and sodium acetate with frequent centrifugations under low temperature to visually detect pellet formation. FNA concentrations were calorimetrically determined and quantified, which yielded 0.10 ng/microliter as the lowest, and 0.813 ng/microliter as the average concentration. Molecular characterization of FNA was done by initially detecting FNA in the agarose gel electrophoresis. No bands were detected when the volume of the samples were varied from 1 mL to 10 mL. Electrophoretic analyses showed the presence of polysaccharides and RNA on the 25-ml volume samples. A more prominent band was observed in LR22 than in LR18 suggesting that total RNA content is significantly higher in the CW of LR22 than in LR18. These results conclusively indicate the successful extraction of FNA in CW. FNA are present in CW, regardless of the age and variety and that it can be extracted at any concentration. Presence of FNA bound to polysaccharide in CW was confirmed and CW was deduced to have both DNA-polysaccharide and RNA-polysaccharide complex at equal amounts using enzyme degradation techniques. Additional molecular characterization was done to determine the form and type of FNA in CW. DS-FNA was detected and results indicate that the amount of DS-FNA is affected by the ontogenetic development of the drupe. Further characterizing the DS-FNA, a DNA-RNA hybrid with the DNA strand suggested to be in short-stranded form was detected. The presence of a DNA-RNA hybrid is suggested to function for stability and regulation in coconut endosperm development. Results of the analysis to determine the type of RNA found in the DNA:RNA hybrid show that FNA in CW is mainly dominated by single-stranded in mRNA species, and the hybrid is actually a DNA-mRNA hybrid. The availability of mRNA in CW gives rise to the possibility of cDNA synthesis to further confirm and verify the role of mRNA in gene expression during endosperm development. The results of this research are pioneering molecular work in coconut water. This also may lead to the possible uses of the VCO byproduct in commercial applications.