Flour from Prosopis alba cotyledons: A natural source of nutrient and bioactive phytochemicals

Abstract

The Prosopis alba seed is a waste material in the process to produce pod flour. To suggest a potential use of these seeds it is necessary to determine the nutritional, phytochemical and functional quality of cotyledon flour from Prosopis alba. This flour showed high level of proteins (62%), low content of total carbohydrate and fat. Free polyphenol (1150±20mg GAE/100g flour) and carotenoids (10.55±0.05mg β-CE/100g flour) compounds were the dominant compounds. The main identified constituents in the polyphenolic extracts were C- glycosyl flavones, including schaftoside, isoschaftoside, vicenin II, vitexin and isovitexin. The extract enriched in polyphenolic compounds exhibited ABTS(+) reducing capacity and scavenging activity of H2O2; and was able to inhibit phospholipase, lipoxygenase and cyclooxygenase, three pro-inflammatory enzymes. According to our results, the P. alba cotyledon flour could be considered as a new alternative in the formulation of functional foods or food supplements.

Chemical and nutritional characterization of raw and thermal-treated flours of Mesquite (Prosopis laevigata) pods and their residual brans

“…Major increases after hydrolysis were found in neutral media, suggesting the presence of flavonoid glycosides of the flavonol subgroup. Previous studies reported the presence of glycosides of two flavonoids, apigenin, and quercetin in mesocarp and seed of P. alba (Cattaneo et al, 2016;Perez et al, 2014), P. nigra (Perez et al, 2014), and P. chilensis (SchmedaHirschmann et al, 2015). Total flavonoids content in brans ranged from 1.41 to 3.16 g/kg in raw samples (ExB, EnHCB, SCB and ExSCB) and from 0.13 to 3.68 g/kg in hydrolyzed samples (ExBH, EnHCBH, SCBH and ExSCBH).…”

“…Major increases in UV absorbance were found in thermaltreated flours with high levels of monosaccharides (Table 2), a substrate for Maillard reaction. Previous works reported the total phenolic compounds content in flours of Prosopis species using the Folin-Ciocalteu reagent method (Bernardi et al, 2010;Briones-Labarca et al, 2011;Cardozo et al, 2010;Cattaneo et al, 2016;Gallegos-Infante et al, 2013;Perez et al, 2014;Schmeda-Hirschmann et al, 2015;Sciammaro et al, 2016) with variability in the values, which can be due to different samples, species and sample treatment. Sample treatment during drying could enhance Maillard reaction activity, indirectly modifying the total phenolic compound content of Prosopis flours.…”

“…The mature fruit of the genus Prosopis is an indehiscent pod conformed by an exocarp, a developed mesocarp, and a woody endocarp which protects the seed (Felker et al, 2013). Pods and pods fractions of Prosopis species have been described in their nutritional profile: P. africana (Igwe, Ojiako, Anugweje, Nwaogu, & Ujowundu, 2012), P. alba (Cattaneo et al, 2016;Felker, Grados, Cruz, & Prokopiuk, 2003;Sciammaro, Ferrero, & Puppo, 2016), P. chilensis (Astudillo, Schmeda-Hirschmann, Herrera, & Cortes, 2000), P. glandulosa (Harden & Zolfaghari, 1988), P juliflora (Marangoni & Alli, 1988), P. laevigata (Barba de la Rosa, Frias-Hernandez, Olalde-Portugal, & Gonzalez-Castañeda, 2006; Gallegos-Infante, Rocha-Guzman, Gonzalez-Laredo, & Garcia-Casas, 2013), P. nigra (Felker et al, 2003), P. ruscifolia (Bernardi, Sanchez, Freyre, & Osella, 2010), and P. tamarugo (Astudillo et al, 2000); active compounds content and in vitro biological activity: P. alba (Cardozo et al, 2010;Cattaneo et al, 2016;Perez et al, 2014;Sciammaro et al, 2016), P. chilensis (Astudillo et al, 2000;Briones-Labarca, Muñoz, & Maureira, 2011;Schmeda-Hirschmann et al, 2015), P. laevigata (Gallegos-Infante et al, 2013), P. nigra (Cardozo et al, 2010;Perez et al, 2014), P. ruscifolia (Bernardi et al, 2010), and P. tamarugo (Astudillo et al, 2000); and in vivo biological activity: P. glandulosa (George, Lochner, & Huisamen, 2011;Huisamen, George, Dietrich, & Genade, 2013). Nutritionally, pods of Prosopis species are gluten free (Bernardi et al, 2010;Felker et al, 2013) and rich in good quality protein (Barba de la Rosa et...…”

“…Pods of Prosopis species have been reported as a source of bioactive compounds (Felker et al, 2013;Schmeda-Hirschmann et al, 2015). Mesocarp (Schmeda-Hirschmann et al, 2015), seed (Bernardi et al, 2010;Briones-Labarca et al, 2011;Cattaneo et al, 2016;Sciammaro et al, 2016) and whole pod flours are a good source of polyphenolic compounds (Cardozo et al, 2010;Cattaneo et al, 2016;Gallegos-Infante et al, 2013;Perez et al, 2014;Sciammaro et al, 2016) with antioxidant (Bernardi et al, 2010;Briones-Labarca et al, 2011;Cardozo et al, 2010;Cattaneo et al, 2016;Perez et al, 2014;Schmeda-Hirschmann et al, 2015;Sciammaro et al, 2016), anti-inflammatory (Cattaneo et al, 2016;Perez et al, 2014), antihypertensive (Gallegos-Infante et al, 2013;Huisamen et al, 2013), and hypoglycemic (George et al, 2011) activities. Best biochemically described Prosopis species are the South American species P. alba, P. chilensis, and the North American P. glandulosa.…”

Prosopis nigra Mesocarp Fine Flour, A Source of Phytochemicals with Potential Effect on Enzymes Linked to Metabolic Syndrome, Oxidative Stress, and Inflammatory Process

“…Hydroxyl radical scavenging activity. The HO radical scavenging activity was determined according to Cattaneo et al (2016). The reaction mixture contained 2-deoxy-d-ribose/ FeCl 3 and different extract concentrations (up to 50 μg GAE/mL) with and without EDTA.…”