| Summary: | Riboflavin is an essential part of the human diet. Although the United States
does not have a major problem with a riboflavin deficiency, other regions of the world
do. This is especially true for those regions whose main subsistence is rice. To help
prevent and control riboflavin deficiencies, many cereal grains are now being fortified
with riboflavin. The recommended dietary allowance of riboflavin is 1.1-1.6 mg per day.
This value increases slightly for pregnant women, breast feeding women, and athletes.
Because riboflavin is an essential part of the diet, it is important to ensure that the
minimum requirements for this nutrient are met. By determining the amount of
riboflavin in food products, an accurate estimate of daily riboflavin intake can be
determined. The AOAC (Association of Official Analytical Chemists) approved
microbiological riboflavin assay can be tedious and time consuming. A faster approach
to the riboflavin assay would greatly benefit the food industry. By scaling down the
assay to microtiter plates both, time and materials can be conserved. Use of microtiter
plates would also allow for numerous samples to be assayed simultaneously. The goal
for developing the microtiter plate assay is to obtain results more rapidly while
maintaining the accuracy and precision of the AOAC ( method 940.33I) tube assay.
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