Abstract
Millet is underutilized in Europe, despite its advantages compared to other common cereals. In Asia and Africa, millet is mainly eaten in fermented form; its consumption has beneficial properties on human health. Three millet batches were compared in terms of free and bound phenols by High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Diode Array Detector-Mass Spectrometry (HPLC-DAD-MS). The richest one in terms of bound phenols was selected for testing via a basic (0.1 M NaOH) and an acidic (1.2 M H2SO4) hydrolysis, in which 149.3 and 193.6 mg/100 g of phenols were recovered, respectively. The ability of fermentation, with yeast and Lactobacilli, to increase the content of phenolic compounds was verified. Five withdrawalswere performed to verify the influence of fermentation time on the total phenolic content. The greatest phenolic content was observed after 72 h. Fermentation increased the cinnamic acids and flavonoids contents by approximately 30%. Vitexin and vitexin 2″-O-rhamnoside contents were significantly higher in the fermented millet; these compounds partially inhibit the protein tyrosine phosphatase enzyme, which is overexpressed in type-2 diabetes. A molecular dynamic simulation showed the two flavonoids to be allosteric inhibitors. The phenolic extract from fermented millet demonstrated a higher level of antioxidant protection on human erythrocytes by ex vivo cellular antioxidant activity in red blood cells. In this context, functional foods based on fermented millet could represent a new trend in European markets.
Highlights
Millet is a generic term that includes various small grains belonging to the Poaceae family
Enzyme (PTP1B), which is overexpressed in type-2 diabetes
The objectives of this work were: (a) to verify how a fermentation process performed with a mixture of yeast and Lactobacilli used for bread production influenced the phenolic profile in millet; (b) to measure the inhibition power of the millet extracts and their flavonoids on PTP1B enzyme; (c) to investigate on the mechanism of action of vitexin and vitexin 2”-O-rhamnoside through an in silico study; (d) to evaluate the antioxidant activity (CAA-RBC) of fermented and unfermented samples
Summary
Millet is a generic term that includes various small grains belonging to the Poaceae family. It exhibits great advantages compared to other cereals such as wheat. Millet is able to grow almost anywhere thanks to its resistance to drought, high temperature tolerance, and low incidence of mycotoxin contamination [1]. In 2016, millet was the sixth most produced cereal worldwide. It contains high levels of proteins, minerals, and vitamins, that confer upon it higher nutritional value than nonmillet cereals. Its proteins are reported to possess significant levels of essential amino acids
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