Anti-Nutritional Factors in Soybeans: Genetics and Breeding

Raw, mature soybean seeds contain anti-nutritional factors, such as protease inhibitors, lectins, goitrogens, cyanogens, anti-vitamin factors, phytic acid, saponins, and estrogens. Soybean products would be less expensive if the cost of processing were reduced by removal of anti-nutritional factors via traditional plant breeding methods. Soybeans without the Kunitz Trypsin inhibitor have about 50% less trypsin inhibitor activity per gram of protein than soybeans containing the Kunitz trypsin inhibitor. R. W. Stahlhut and T. Hymowitz screened, electrophoretically, the US Department of Agriculture cultivar and genetic type collections for Bowman-Birk inhibitor variants. Among the components of soybean seed are a group of glycoproteins that cause the agglutination of certain red blood cells. These glycoproteins are called lectins or phytohaemagglutinins. Soybeans contain several anti-vitamin factors such as A, B12, and D3. Saponins are glucosides characterized by their foaming in aqueous solutions and hemolyzing red blood cells.