[Maria]

Hi everyone

I have to do an experiment where I have to measure biochemicals in leaves (lignin, starch, cellulose, wax, xylan, etc). I am not sure which machine I should use. I have been checking in the web for some NMR spectrometers and I am not sure if it is matter of the machine or the spectral library I'll use.
Can someone explain me what kind of machine I need to identify these compounds? Is there a machine which gives me more accuracy in the concentration of those compounds?
Thank you

[fledarmus]

wow, you're going to measure all of the different biochemicals in leaves with a single instrument? Good luck...

HPLC might be the machine you are looking for, probably with at least a mass spec detector. This will separate the components of the inevitable mixture that you will be getting from the leaf into some of its myriad of components, and the MS detector will tell you the molecular weight of each component, assuming that they are pure components. If you have samples of the pure components to test against, you can also calibrate your spectra to give you the concentration of each component in your mixture. NMR would probably be the best machine for identifying each pure component once you have isolated it, but you're going to be overwhelmed with peaks if you try to run an NMR on a mixture.

[Maria]

I need some help.
I need to meassure some biochemicals in leaves of plants, and I don't know how to measure them, if with wet chemistry (although it seems complicated) or with spectrphotometers? spectral libraries? 
This is my problem:
I'll need to see the concentration in leaves of substances such as:
1. starch
2. Ribulose 1.5 biphosphate
3. Heat shock proteins
4. Antifreezers proteins
5. Peroxidase, Glutathione and Ascorbic Acid
6. Lignin, cellulose and Hemicellulose
7. Anthocyanin pigments
8. nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potasium
Do you know what kind of instrument (or spectrometer) I can use to calculate the concentration of these compounds?
or it has to be done just with wet chemistry?I am having problems to figure this out...

[Guitarmaniac86]

The only way I can think of even beginning something like this is by first boiling the leaves in a solvent to extract soluble and volatile compounds and analysing those via GC-MS and HPLC and if you are doing proteins, you would have to digest the leaves and use antibodies that can bind to them in an assay that are radiolabelled. The higher the radioactivity the higher the concentration of target protein. I have absolutely no expertise in this are though. This is something I would try just through intuition alone. I am positive there are members better placed to help you here. Also, check out research by Prof. D. Mulholland. I know she is very active in this type of research.