NUTRITIONAL ENHANCEMENT OF BROCCOLI SPROUTS THROUGH MANIPULATION OF GROWTH CONDITIONS

The consume of Brassicaceae, widely diffused in the world, is highly recommended because of their recognized beneficial role. Young seedlings (sprouts), in particular, represent enriched sources of vitamins, minerals, and health promoting bioactive substances respect to adult plants. In addition, sprouts can be easily grown all year round at home representing a good alternative to increase vegetable consumption. Interestingly, many of the health promoting bioactive molecules are produced or vary their concentration in response to environmental growth conditions. In fact, to survive and grow under abiotic stress conditions, crops have evolved sophisticated adaptive response mechanisms based on a high metabolic plasticity. In this work, we aim at studying the influence of different light and temperature regimes, as well as, of some chemical and hormonal treatments on bioactive molecules production in broccoli sprouts. We focused our attention mainly on glucosinolates, anthocyanins and phenolics compounds for their recognized health promoting role. We have developed a rapid and sensitive LC-MS/MS (MRM) method to analyse and quantify glucosinolates in broccoli sprouts. The results showed that exposure to light increase the glucosinolates and anthocyanins content in broccoli sprouts. Also, abiotic stresses (sucrose, mannitol, NaCl) and some stress responses hormones were able to increase accumulation of anthocyanins and glucosinolates, with sucrose being the most effective. In addition in vitro studies to test the potential health promoting effect of extracts of broccoli sprouts grown under different conditions on different cell culture system are in progress.