Jta. Oliveira et al., CANAVALIA BRASILIENSIS SEEDS - PROTEIN-QUALITY AND NUTRITIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF DIETARY LECTIN, Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 64(4), 1994, pp. 417-424
This study reports on the performance of rats fed with diets based on
Canavalia brasiliensis seed proteins. The raw seeds are not a good reg
ime, causing the animals to lose weight, exhibiting low net protein ut
ilization (NPU) values, high nitrogen excretion and macroscopic altera
tions of key internal organs. Heat treatment, but not dialysis of the
seed meal, had a beneficial effect on the nutritional parameters. Feed
ing rats with a diet containing pure lectin showed a lower digestibili
ty and NPU, a much higher dry matter and nitrogen excretion, impaired
growth rate and small-intestine enlargement in comparison with rats pa
ir-fed on egg-white protein. In addition, lectin was detected fully ac
tive against rabbit erythrocytes in the faeces of rats fed lectin-cont
aining diets. It was suggested that the seed lectin acts as an antinut
ritive dietary component.