BACKGROUND: Soybean is widely used in food formulations; however, few studies on fungal or mycotoxin contamination have been undertaken. Free, conjugated, and bound phenolic compounds, and their antioxidant and antifungal potential, were therefore evaluated together with the occurrence of aflatoxin B 1 (AFB 1 ) in soybeans.
RESULTS:The conjugated and bound phenolic soybean extracts were more efficient for the inhibition of the 2,2 diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl (DPPH) radical, the peroxidase enzyme, and the fungal -amylase enzyme. Aflatoxin B 1, detected at low levels (0.96 to 1.67 ng g −1 ), confirmed the protective effect of soybean phenolic compounds against mycotoxigenic contamination. Principal component analysis confirmed that syringic, p-hydroxybenzoic, p-coumaric acids and vanillin were essential for antioxidant and antifungal activities.
CONCLUSION: This study presented new insights into the functionality of phenolic compounds in soybeans, regarding their potential to protect the crops naturally against fungal contamination, avoiding aflatoxin production, as attested by the correlations between phenolic compounds and antioxidant mechanisms.
Antifungal potential assayThe antifungal potential of free, conjugated, and bound phenolic fractions was determined through the evaluation of commercial fungal -amylase inhibition, following Silva et al. 7 The specific activity of -amylase was expressed as mg starch mg protein −1 min −1 . The inhibitory effect on -amylase was evaluated by calculating the specific activity after the reaction in the presence of phenolic extracts and expressed as percentage -amylase specific inhibition μg −1 phenolic fraction.
Relationship between phenolic compounds and biological activityA correlation analysis was performed on the content of phenolic compounds of conjugated and bound phenolic fractions and FC reducing capacity, PO, DPPH and -amylase inhibition