Characterization of commercial soybean products by conventional and perfusion reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography and multivariate analysis

Conventional and perfusion reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography are used to characterize commercial soybean products for human consumption. For this purpose, previously optimized methods of conventional and perfusion chromatography applied to the separation of soybean proteins are employed. Sixty different samples corresponding to 26 different trademarks of soybean products [soybean protein isolate, soybean flour, textured soybean, soybean milks (liquid and powdered), and soybean infant formulas] are analyzed. Characterization of soybean products is carried out on the basis of their protein profiles obtained by both chromatographic methods. Data obtained are processed using multivariate methods such as principal components and discriminant analysis. Perfusion chromatography enables a further and faster characterization of commercial soybean products than conventional chromatography, of great value in the quality control of this kind of product.