RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Total soybean proteins, storage proteins, glycinin (11S) and ß-conglycinin (7S) fractions and their respective subunits in seven soybean varieties were analyzed. In this work we also present the correlation between concentration and activity of bioactive proteins, lipoxygenase and proteinase inhibitors. RESULTS: Glycinin and ß-conglycinin comprise about 750 g kg(-1) of the bean storage protein and as such account for both quantity and quality of the kernel protein. The 11S concentration of the varieties studied ranged from 503.4 to 602.9 g kg(-1) and those of 7S varied from 178.2 to 230.6 g kg(-1) of total extractable proteins. The ratio of 11S/7S proteins varied from 2.43 to 3.29 among the varieties. A very strong positive correlation was found between the concentration of Kunitz trypsin inhibitor and activity of total trypsin inhibitor (r = 0.96). However, lipoxygenase concentration did not show a strong correlation with lipoxygenase activity. CONCLUSION: It appears that among the seven ZP soybean genotypes there are genotypes with different amounts of subunits that should be bred in the future for a desired level of protein components.
