RESEARCH ON EXTRACTION OF ISOFLAVONES FROM SOYBEAN GERM

Abstract

Isoflavones in soybean including genistein, daidzein, glycitein and their acetyl and malonyl derivatives that have week estrogenic activity, so they are called phytoestrogen. There are many of papers publishing the research results about isoflavones from soybean seed and soybean sprout. They can balance estrogenic hormone and support woman to prevent menopause symptoms. Therefore, they have other precious biological activities such as anti - cancer, anti – oxidant and anti - osteomalacia. On the market, we can find many of functional foods of isoflavones from soybean seed and soybean sprout. Soybean germ is the part of soybean seed contains highest isoflavones, and the isoflavones content in soybean germ higher than that in the whole soybean seed about 5 times. In this paper, the total isoflavones were extracted from soybean germ. Five of influent factors on the isoflavone extraction are solvent concentration, extraction temperature, extraction time, extraction pH and the material/solvent ratio were optimized. The content of isoflavones in soybean germ material is from 1.8 to 2 percent. After extraction with optimized conditions, we obtain the total crude isoflavones extract that contains 3.8% of isoflavones.