Mung bean (Vigna radiata) as probiotic food through fermentation with Lactobacillus plantarum B1-6

Mung bean fermentation by lactic acid bacteria (LAB) is an interesting attempt for development of novel functional foods. In the present study, mung bean milk (MBM) was prepared and supplemented by sucrose and then fermented with Lactobacillus plantarum B1-6. The microbial populations, protein characteristics, peptide profiles, and ACE inhibitory activity of fermented MBM were investigated. One-factor-at-a-time method showed that sucrose concentration, inoculums concentration, incubation temperature and time influenced the final LAB populations. Under an optimized conditions using response surface methodology (RSM) experimental design, the highest LAB population of 8.96 log cfu/mL was obtained. Electrophoresis profiles indicated that most mung bean proteins were degraded during fermentation with the hydrolysis percentages between 49 and 64%. Reverse phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) illustrated disappearance of larger/more hydrophobic peptides and increased amount of smaller/more hydrophilic peptides. L. plantarum B1-6 fermented MBM also showed a significantly higher ACE inhibitory activity (67.5%) at the end of fermentation. Overall, this study demonstrated that MBM could be a resourceful LAB carrier and fermented MBM by L. plantarum B1-6 had a great potential to be served as a functional novel food.