Characterization of Selected Varieties of Pulses for Valuable Nutrients and Antioxidant Potential

Abstract

Pulses are one of the important crops that provide balanced nutritional composition and having most important bioactive compounds. The pulses composition varies with respect to species and cultivars. The present study was planned to appraise the compositional variation in lately developed cultivars of pulses native to Pakistan. Different cultivars of selected pulses were checked and analyzed for nutritional composition, secondary metabolites and in vitro and in vivo bioactive analysis. Moreover, the cultivars at different stages of maturity were also studied. Assessed cultivars proved to be good source of primary metabolites (protein, carbohydrates, oil, crude fiber and minerals) with significant (p≤0.05) variation and these cultivars of pulses provide substantial concentration of phenolic acids and flavonoids with incredible total antioxidant activity in terms of TPC, TFC, DPPH scavenging capacity, bleaching ability with β-carotene and reducing power. Antimicrobial potential was also analyzed against bacterial and fungal strains that proved pulses a rich source of bioactive compounds that are very necessary for a healthy body against many diseases. High performance chromatography (HPLC) was used to find the concentration of all detected phenolics and sugars compounds. Different free amino acids and fatty acids composition was also determined by amino acid analyzer and GC respectively. In vivo biological study, animal (rat) modeling was conducted to evaluate the effect of pulses extract as a calculated dosage of 150 mg/Kg and 300 mg/kg of rat body weight was employed for twenty one days for analyzing their hepatoprotective activity against induced toxicity by CCl4. Pulses extracts showed ositive effects on liver and on blood chemistry and increase total antioxidant activity (TAC). In general, our designed project revealed that the observed cultivars of pulses, native to Pakistan are proved to be a good source of phenolic acids, flavonoids, minerals and minor sugars with momentous biological activities (antimicrobial and antifungal) which provide protection against cardiovascular risk factors, suggesting their consumption as functional and nutraceuticals foods for health conscious consumers.