Stability of Divicine Hydrolyzed from Vicine

Divicine and isouramil are the causative agents of favism. The stability of divicine is of vital importance in faba bean detoxification. The literature review of this thesis focused on the hydrolysis of vicine to divicine, the oxidation processes of divicine and its stability studies. The main aims of this thesis were to produce divicine using the hydrolysis of vicine with ?-glucosidase, and study the effects of nitrogen/air atmosphere, reducing agent, pH and temperature on the stability of divicine. The identities of other compounds observed in vicine hydrolysis were also to be investigated. In addition, convicine was also hydrolyzed in the extracts and pure convicine fractions. Vicine and convicine were co-extracted from dehulled faba bean flour and were separated with preparative HPLC-MS. The extracts and the pure vicine and convicine fractions were hydrolyzed with ?-glucosidase to yield divicine and isouramil. The identities of the compounds formed during vicine fraction hydrolysis were studied by MS. In the following stability studies, the pure vicine fractions were hydrolyzed with ?-glucosidase under nitrogen and in the presence of (+)-sodium L-ascorbate. Moreover, the fractions were firstly hydrolyzed under air, next, the formed divicine was incubated at pH 3.0 or 5.0 at 20 or 37 ºC. An analytical HPLC method was used to study the changes during hydrolysis and stability tests. It was found that higher ?-glucosidase concentration and longer incubation period resulted in higher hydrolysis degrees of vicine and convicine. Further, vicine was hydrolyzed more rapidly at pH 3.0 than 5.0. Vicine was hydrolyzed to divicine. Divicine further generated two compounds, named compound 1 and compound 2 in this thesis. Their corresponding retention times and absorption maxima were: 2.15 min, 282 nm; 1.79 min, 262 nm; and 1.94 min, 210 nm. Compound 1 was directly generated from divicine. It was possibly oxidized divicine, but its characterization with MS failed in this study. Compound 1 decomposed to compound 2 at pH 5.0 at 20 ºC, but at pH 3.0 at 20 ºC, divicine might directly decompose to compound 2. Only one compound (named compound 3) was formed during convicine hydrolysis, and its retention time and absorption maximum were 2.50 min and 280 nm. Divicine and compounds 1, 2, and 3 were not stable, they finally decomposed to non-UV absorbing substances. Divicine was more stable under nitrogen than under air, and in the presence of (+)-sodium L-ascorbate than without its presence. Divicine decomposed similarly at pH 3.0 and 5.0 at 37 ºC, but at 20 ºC, divicine was more stable at pH 5.0. At both pH values, the stability of divicine was increased at 20 ºC compared with 37 ºC.