Legumes are often used as a source of natural antioxidant. Elicitation is a promising alternative way of improving antioxidant compounds in legumes sprouts, such as flavonoid compound. NaCl stress can be used as one of abiotic elicitation that induced non-enzymatic defense in a plant, thus increases secondary metabolites which enhance the antioxidant capacity. However, its effects on cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) germination need to be more studied. In this study, we germinated cowpea under increasing salinity (0, 50, 100, 150mM NaCl) to investigate its effect on the total flavonoid content and antioxidant activity (radical scavenging activity and reducing power). Total flavonoid content and radical scavenging activity of cowpea sprouts increase along with increasing NaCl concentration. Meanwhile, only 150mM NaCl showed significantly higher reducing power among other concentrations. Total flavonoid content have a high correlation with radical scavenging activity (r=0, 962; p<0, 01) but not correlated with reducing power (r=0, 137; p>0, 05). This research results proved that elicitation using 150mM NaCl could be used as one of the strategies to enhance bioactive compound and antioxidant activity in legumes, thus increasing its potential to be developed as an antioxidant-based functional food.
Previous research showed that pigeon pea has potential as an anti-diabetic functional drink related to its antioxidant capacity. Antioxidant capacity in legumes can be increased by elicitation. Improvement of antioxidant capacity in legumes elicited by NaCl was significantly higher than that of other abiotic elicitation. The objective of this study was to determine the antioxidant capacity of pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan L.) sprouts which were elicited using NaCl (50mM) with various elicitation times (8 hours, 12 hours, 16 hours) and germinated for 48 hours. The results showed that elicitation time did not have a significant effect on the total flavonoids content, but significantly increased antioxidant activity (DPPH radical scavenging, and reducing power) of pigeon pea sprouts along with increasing elicitation time. This study proved that elicitation using NaCl 50mM for 16 hours increases the total flavonoid content (69, 36%), DPPH radical scavenging activity (134, 18%), and reducing power (24, 54%) of pigeon pea sprouts. Elicitation using 50mM NaCl with 16 hours elicitation time and 48 hours germination time can be considered as a technique to enhance antioxidant capacity in legumes sprouts.
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