Seed Protein of Lentils: Current Status, Progress, and Food Applications

Abstract

Grain legumes are widely recognized as staple sources of dietary protein worldwide. Lentil seeds are an excellent source of plant-based proteins and represent a viable alternative to animal and soybean proteins for food processing formulations. Lentil proteins provide not only dietary amino acids but are also a source of bioactive peptides that provide health benefits. This review focuses on the current knowledge of seed protein, extraction and isolation methods, bioactive peptides, and food applications of lentil protein. Lentil is the most rapidly expanding crop for direct human consumption, and has potential for greater impact as a protein source for food processing applications. Improvements in lentil protein quality, amino acid composition, and processing fractions will enhance the nutritional quality of this rapidly expanding crop globally.

Keywords: Lens; amino acid; bioactive peptides; functionality; legume; protein.

Figure 1

Principal component analysis (PCA) of amino acid data (meta-analysis) from Table 2. The biplot shows amino acid data and legume crops as vectors. Vectors that are close together are correlated in terms of the observed amino acid pool for each crop. PCA analysis was employed to illustrate relationships between amino acids and legume species using the R statistical package (R Development Core Team, 2018, www.Rproject.org).