Effect of different LED lights on aliphatic glucosinolates metabolism and biochemical characteristics in broccoli sprouts

[Display omitted] •LED lights exerted a positive impact on nutritional quality of broccoli sprouts.•Yellow and purple lights caused the higher glucoraphanin content than other lights.•Blue and yellow lights led to the highest sulforaphane formation in sprouts.•Blue light led to the highest contents of anthocyanins and ascorbic acid in sprouts. In this study, various LED lights (white, red, yellow, green, blue and purple) were applied to evaluate their effects on the biochemical parameters, aliphatic glucosinolates synthesis and sulforaphane formation in broccoli sprouts. The length of broccoli sprouts and bulk water content were decreased after LED light treatments, especially white, green, and purple LED lights. The highest contents of ascorbic acid and anthocyanins were recorded in blue LED light treated broccoli sprouts. Green LED light treated sprouts contained the highest contents of ATP, ADP and AMP. Yellow and bule lights resulted in higher glucose content. Yellow, blue, and purple LED lights induced glucoraphanin and glucoerucin accumulation via upregulating aliphatic glucosinolates biosynthetic genes. Yellow LED light caused higher glucoraphanin content than blue LED light, while sulforaphane formation showed no difference; which might be attributed to higher myrosinase activity and its expression as well as lower ESM1 expression under blue LED light.