The antioxidant and anticancer properties of chickpea water and chickpea polyphenol extracts in vitro

Background and Objective: Chickpea is an essential legume, a staple food in many cultures, and contains nutrients with potential health benefits. The chickpea water/aquafaba (CPW) leached out after cooking is usually discarded, which may potentially have significant anticancer and other health-beneficial properties. This study compared the in vitro bioactivity of CPW with chickpea polyphenol extract (CPPE) to evaluate its impact on pathways of colorectal cancer progression and development. Findings: Morphological observation by APOPercentage, cell viability detection using a cytotoxic assay, and cell migration-scratch assay points to measure rate of metastasis were employed. Overall antioxidant activity of CPW and CPPE were measured using ABTS and DPPH free-radical assays. At 50 µg/mL concentration and above, both CPW and CPPE extracts significantly reduce cell viability in HT-29 colon cancer cell lines (p <.05). Moreover, a quantitative analysis of the extent of apoptosis demonstrated that at 250 and 500 μg/mL concentrations, both extracts induced significant apoptosis compared to the untreated control. Meanwhile, the cell migration scratch area decreases by 34.42% and 15.27% when treated with CPW and CPPE, respectively. Conclusion: CPW demonstrated comparable in vitro anticancer properties and antioxidant activity in colorectal cancer cells to CPPE. Further, in vivo studies are warranted to evaluate the physiological bioactivity of CPW and CPPE in targeting pathways of cancer development and progression. Significance and Novelty: Our results showed the water used for cooking chickpeas should not be discarded as it contains beneficial bioactive compounds.