Soybean Bowman Birk inhibitors (BBI) are minor protein components of soybean with a molecular weight of about 8000 Da. In the past decades, BBI inhibitors were considered as antinutrients because they inhibit digestive enzymes affecting the digestibility of proteins. In recent years, BBI are being considered as promising anticancer agents of interest in food and biomedicine. Different analytical tools have been used to identify soybean proteins but there is a lack of methods for routine analysis of BBI in foods. Since CZE analysis fulfils all the characteristics required to achieve this goal, its feasibility was assessed in the present work. Samples of standard BBI, soy flour, isolated soy protein and soy foodstuffs were analyzed by CZE. Sample preparation was improved to achieve accurate quantitative analysis of BBI. CZE conditions were optimized based on those methods previously described by others. Results so far obtained suggest that CZE is an adequate inexpensive analytical tool for routine analysis of soy BBI protein.

These studies were supported by Consolider Ingenio Programme project FUN-C-FOOD CSD2007-00063. M. Amigo-Benavent thanks Danone Institute research fellowship.

Resumen del póster presentado al 28th International Symposium on Chromatography celebrado en Valencia (España) del 12 al 16 de septiembre de 2010.

Peer Reviewed