Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Journal of Food Measurement and Characterization https://doi.org/10.1007/s11694-019-00277-3 ORIGINAL PAPER Solid‑state fermentation of pearl millet with Aspergillus oryzae and Rhizopus azygosporus: efects on bioactive profle and DNA damage protection activity Sukhvinder Singh Purewal 1  · Raj Kumar Salar 2  · Manpreet Singh Bhatti 3  · Kawaljit Singh Sandhu 1  · Surender Kumar Singh 4  · Pinderpal Kaur 1 Received: 12 June 2019 / Accepted: 23 September 2019 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019 Abstract The present scientifc work envisaged the efect of fermentation, starter culture, solvent type, concentration of solvent and extraction conditions on pearl millet phenolics. Fermentation of pearl millet grains was performed using two flamentous fungal strains (Aspergillus oryzae and Rhizopus azygosporus) for a specifc period (336 h). Pearl millet koji was extracted under optimized conditions and studied for the presence of specifc bioactive compounds using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Results confrmed the presence of ascorbic acid (1.55 mg g −1 ), p-coumaric acid (1.04 mg g −1 ) and cinnamic acid (0.71 mg g −1 as major compounds in unfermented pearl millet and ascorbic acid (10.23 mg g −1 ), gallic acid (8.95 mg g −1 ), resorcinol (2.90 mg g −1 , catechol (7.60 mg g −1 ), vanillin (4.58 mg g −1 ), p-coumaric acid (3.96 mg g −1 ), quercetin (2.74 mg g −1 ), benzoic acid (5.10 mg g −1 ) and cinnamic acid (5.14 mg g −1 ) in A. oryzae fermented millet (AoFM). Specifc phenolics in R. azygosporus fermented millet (RaFM) were ascorbic acid (8.80 mg g −1 ), gallic acid (4.70 mg g −1 ) and p-coumaric acid (1.27 mg g −1 ) along with other minor phenolics. DNA damage protection activity was observed maximum till 288 h of fermentation for AoFM and 240 h of fermentation for RaFM. * Sukhvinder Singh Purewal purewal.0029@gmail.com 1 Department of Food Science & Technology, Maharaja Ranjit Singh Punjab Technical University, Bathinda, India 2 Department of Biotechnology, Chaudhary Devi Lal University, Sirsa, India 3 Department of Botanical and Environmental Sciences, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, India 4 National Centre for Integrated Pest Management, Pusa Campus, New Delhi, India