MONITORING THE CYANOGENIC POTENTIAL OF CASSAVA - THE TREND TOWARDS BIOSENSOR DEVELOPMENT

Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is an important staple crop for mor e than 500 million people in the developing countries. It contains lin amarin as the principal cyanogenic glucoside, which upon hydrolysis li berates hydrogen cyanide. Toxicity resulting from the eating of inadeq uately processed cassava has been reported and there are world-wide ef forts to make cassava consumption safer. An important contribution tow ard this is the development of methods to determine the cyanogenic pot ential of cassava and its products. Hence, procedures - new or modifie d ones - are being developed in response to the needs of the end-users . This article describes the rationale behind this development and rev iews some of the more recent findings. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.