New molecular features of cowpea bean (Vigna unguiculata, l. Walp) β-vignin.

Cowpea seed β-vignin, a vicilin-like globulin, proved to exert various health favourable effects, including blood cholesterol reduction in animal models. The need of a simple scalable enrichment procedure for further studies for tailored applications of this seed protein is crucial. A chromatography-independent fractionation method allowing to obtain a protein preparation with a high degree of homogeneity was used. Further purification was pursued to deep the molecular characterisation of β-vignin. The results showed: (i) differing glycosylation patterns of the two constituent polypeptides, in agreement with amino acid sequence features; (ii) the seed accumulation of a gene product never identified before; (iii) metal binding capacity of native protein, a property observed only in few other legume seed vicilins.