Hyperlipidemia is a major risk factor in etiology of cardiovascular disease. Previous studies have shown association between vegetarian diet and low total serum cholesterol as well as LDLcholesterol which is a pointer to low risk of cardiovascular disease. Dietary fiber, antioxidants and other classes of nutrients have been reported to ameliorate cardiovascular risk factors. Fruits and vegetables being rich sources of fiber and antioxidants have been the focus in intervention studies. The current work reports the effect local fruits and vegetables on cardiovascular risk factors in African hypertensive subjects in an 8 week study. Though there was no significant difference in the Body Mass Index and HDL-cholesterol at the end of the eighth week, there were significant reductions (P < 0.05) in serum triglycerides (125.87 ± 6.0 to108.27 ± 5.49 mgdL -1 ); total serum cholesterol (226.60 ± 6.15 to 179.20 ± 5.78) and LDL-cholesterol (135.69 ± 5.56 to 93.07 ± 7.18 mgdL -1 ). We concluded that consumption of combination of local fruits and vegetables may reduce the incidence of cardiovascular risk factors in Africans.

Background β-Cyanoalanine synthase plays essential roles in germinating seeds, such as in cyanide homeostasis. Methods β-Cyanoalanine synthase was isolated from sorghum seeds, purified using chromatographic techniques and its biochemical and catalytic properties were determined. Results The purified enzyme had a yield of 61.74% and specific activity of 577.50 nmol H2S/min/mg of protein. The apparent and subunit molecular weight for purified β-cyanoalanine synthase were 58.26±2.41 kDa and 63.4 kDa, respectively. The kinetic parameters with sodium cyanide as substrate were 0.67±0.08 mM, 17.60±0.50 nmol H2S/mL/min, 2.97×10−1 s−1 and 4.43×102 M−1 s−1 for KM, Vmax, kcat and kcat/KM, respectively. With L-cysteine as substrate, the kinetic parameters were 2.64±0.37 mM, 63.41±4.04 nmol H2S/mL/min, 10.71×10−1 s−1 and 4.06×102 M−1 s−1 for KM, Vmax, kcat and kcat/KM, respectively. The optimum temperature and pH for activity were 35°C and 8.5, respectively. The enzyme retained more than half of its activity at 40°C. Inhibitors such as HgCl2, EDTA, glycine and iodoacetamide reduced enzyme activity. Conclusion The biochemical properties of β-cyanoalanine synthase in germinating sorghum seeds highlights its roles in maintaining cyanide homeostasis.

Cyanide is produced throughout a plant's life cycle, its production increases during certain developmental stages such as seed germination, seedling elongation, fruit ripening and senescence. Beta-cyanoalanine synthase is the most important cyanide metabolizing enzyme found in plants. This work is aimed at studying the tissue distribution, partial purification and some physicochemical properties of β-cyanoalanine synthase from bean seeds (Phaseolus vulgaris). β-cyanolalanine synthase was isolated and partially purified using a combination of ammonium sulphate precipitation, desalting on Sephadex G-10 and gel filtration chromatography on Sephacryl S-200 column. The biochemical characteristics of the enzyme were investigated. Results obtained from this work showed that β-cyanolalanine synthase is more concentrated in the seeds (20.53 nmol/HS/mg) when compared 2 to the cotyledons (10.08 nmol/HS/mg) and the seed coats (5.82 nmol/HS/mg). The partially purified 2 2 enzyme showed a specific activity of 26.77 nmol/HS/mg and an apparent molecular weight of about 2 60,000Da, K values for cyanide and L-cysteine of  0.741 mM and 1.724 mM respectively. The V max m value obtained for cyanide was 25.00 nmol/H S/ml/minwhile that of L-cysteine was 2 o666.67nmol/H S/ml/min. The enzyme showed an optimum temperature of 40C and optimum pH of 2 10.0.Studies on the effect of chloride salt indicated that NaCl and MnCl had strong inhibitory effect 2 on the enzyme; NHCl had slight negative effect while KCl and ZnCl activated the enzyme dose 4 2 dependently.This study showed the presence of β-cyanoalanine synthase in bean seeds which is believed to function in the detoxification of cyanide produced in its tissues especially during germination.