New approach to the fungal decontamination of wheat used for wheat sprouts: effects of aminolevulinic acid

Nowadays, there is a growing interest in natural, minimally processed, nutritional and healthy foods. Sprouted seeds can be offered as natural nutritive products. Regrettably, existing seed decontamination technologies are limited and have specific disadvantages. 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA) as a novel and effective tool for wheat decontamination from microfungi is proposed in this work. Inhibition of wheat with 5-ALA revealed a drastically suppressed development of microfungi. Studies of wheat germination characteristics showed that 5-ALA stimulates the growth of wheat seedlings and roots without impairing the vigor of germination and the viability of seeds. 5-ALA also induces either marginal or significant activities of antioxidant enzymes which can be associated with enhanced cellular capacity to detoxify reactive oxygen species. The results indicate that 5-ALA application may be an effective, environmentally friendly and inexpensive technology to be used in producing sprouts for human consumption.