Effects of natural protease inhibitors on high protease activity flours

- Wheat bug protease(s) was considerably inhibited by pefabloc-SC and EDTA-Na2.
- Hop, grass pea, red kidney bean and sunflower reduced the bug protease activity.
- The highest inhibitory activity was obtained with the hop extract.
- Dough development time and stability of damaged sample increased with hop extract.
- Higher Rmax and lower E values for damaged sample were obtained with hop extract.

Wheat grain damaged by wheat bug (Eurygaster spp.) contains the bug salivary secretion which hydrolyses the gluten needed for the dough quality of breadmaking due to its proteolytic activity. Since the protease inhibitors are widespread throughout the plant kingdom, the possibility of using some plants, especially food and feed legumes to decrease the proteolytic activity of flours milled from bug damaged wheats was investigated. The proteolytic activity was considerably inhibited by pefabloc-SC and EDTA-Na2, suggesting that bug protease(s) included serine and metallo proteases. Extracts from cones of hops, seeds of grass pea, red kidney bean and sunflower caused reduction in the activity of bug protease(s). Effects of hop extract on electrophoretic, rheological properties of high protease activity flours milled from different bread wheat cultivars damaged by the bug were also studied. The dough development time and stability values of high protease activity flours increased considerably with hop extract at the lowest addition level (10:1, flour to hop extract ratio). The doughs supplemented with the hop extract had higher maximum resistance and lower extensibility values as compared to their controls. These results suggested that hop extract had improving effects on high protease activity flours due to the bug damage.