Chickpea and Lupin Sprouts, Stimulated by Different LED Lights, As Novel Examples of Isoflavones-Rich Functional Food, and Their Impact on Breast and Prostate Cells

Abstract

Among all legumes sprouts' active compounds, isoflavones seem to be the most important; nevertheless, their high content is not always associated with beneficial effects. These compounds may prevent or stimulate hormone-dependent cancers due to their estrogen-like activity. Different LED light quality can change the synthesis of active compounds and significantly influence the biological activity of the sprouts. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of LED light (red, blue, green, yellow), as well as total darkness, and natural light conditions (as reference), on isoflavones content, determined by HPLC-UV-VIS, during 10 days of harvesting of chickpea and lupin sprouts. Due to the ambiguous estrogenic potential of isoflavones, the impact of these sprouts on normal and cancer prostate and breast cells was evaluated. Yellow LED light resulted in the highest sum of isoflavones in chickpea sprouts (up to 1 g/100 g dw), while for green LED light, the isoflavones sum was the lowest. The exact opposite effect was noted for lupin sprouts, with the predominance of green over the yellow LED light. The examined sprouts were of high safety to non-neoplastic breast and prostate cells, with interesting cytotoxic effects on breast MCF7 and prostate DU145 cancer cells. No clear relationship was observed between the activity and isoflavones content.

Keywords: LED light; breast cancer; isoflavones; legumes; prostate cancer; sprouts.

Figure 1

Cytotoxic effect of lupin (LLS) and chickpea (CAS) seed extracts on prostate and breast normal and cancer cells (for the acronyms of the cell lines–see Section 2.5). Cells were treated with 500 µg/mL of seed extracts (n = 3) for 24 h. Values are presented as the mean ± SD (standard deviation). Significant differences between two kinds of seeds (p < 0.05) were marked with *.

Figure 2

Cumulation dynamics of isoflavones sums [%] in chickpea (A), and lupin (B) sprouts harvested for 3, 5, 7, and 10 days.

Figure 3

Cytotoxic effect of the extracts of chickpea sprouts (CA) harvested for 3, 5, 7, and 10 days in different LED light conditions: natural (L), darkness (N), red (R), yellow (Y), green (G), blue (B) on breast normal (MCF10A) and cancer (MCF7, MDA-MB-231) cells. Cells were treated with 500 µg/mL of sprout extracts (n = 3) for 24 h. Values are presented as the mean ± SD (standard deviation). Significant differences (p < 0.05) for each cell lines refer to normal sprouts harvesting procedure and are marked as *.

Figure 4

Cytotoxic effect of the extracts of lupin sprouts (LL) harvested for 3, 5, 7, and 10 days in different LED light conditions: natural (L), darkness (N), red (R), yellow (Y), green (G), blue (B) on breast normal (MCF10A) and cancer (MCF7, MDA-MB-231) cells. Cells were treated with 500 µg/mL of sprout extracts (n = 3) for 24 h. Values are presented as the mean ± SD (standard deviation). Significant differences (p < 0.05) for each cell line refer to normal sprouts harvesting procedure and are marked as *.

Figure 5

Cytotoxic effect of the extracts of chickpea sprouts (CA) harvested for 3, 5, 7, and 10 days in different LED light conditions: natural (L), darkness (N), red (R), yellow (Y), green (G), blue (B) on prostate normal (PNT2) and cancer (DU145, PC3, LNCaP) cells. Cells were treated with 500 µg/mL of sprout extracts (n = 3) for 24 h. Values are presented as the mean ± SD (standard deviation). Significant differences (p < 0.05) for each cell line refer to normal sprouts harvesting procedure and are marked as *.

Figure 6

Cytotoxic effect of the extracts of lupin sprouts (LL) harvested for 3, 5, 7, and 10 days in different LED light conditions: natural (L), darkness (N), red (R), yellow (Y), green (G), blue (B) to prostate normal (PNT2) and cancer (DU145, PC3, LNCaP) cells. Cells were treated with 500 µg/mL of sprout extracts (n = 3) for 24 h. Values are presented as the mean ± SD (standard deviation). Significant differences (p < 0.05) for each cell line refer to normal sprouts harvesting procedure and are marked as *.

Figure 7

The parameter loadings on first and second latent components in the first PLS model (the predictive parameters are marked with diamonds, and response parameters by circles); (A) for chickpea sprouts; (B) for lupin sprouts. Time (3d), (5d), (7d), (10d)—sprouts harvested for 3, 5, 7, and 10 days.