# Legumes as Functional Food for Cardiovascular Disease
## 3 Legumes as Functional Food for Cardiovascular Diseases
### Clickpea (Cicer Aretinum L.)  
Chickpea (_Cicer aretinum_ L.) is one of the oldest and widely consumed legumes [185]. The seeds are an excellent source of dietary protein, has a well-balanced amino acid composition, and has a substantial bioavailable protein [335]. Chickpea consumption is attributed to several cardiovascular benefits such as mitigation of CVD as well as the prevention of hyperlipidemia [336; 337]. [PERSON] et al., (2009) found that male Wistar rats fed with 200 g/kg of either chickpea or lentil diets for four weeks showed significant (_p_ < 0.05) reduction in body weight, food efficiency ratio, weight gain (g/day/rat), epididymal fat relative weight and fat lipoprotein lipase activity as well as decreased plasma TAG and VLDL; liver cholesterol and TAG; plasma VLDL mass; and APOB-100, esterified and unsterified cholesterol, and VLDL phospholipid levels. Further, ingestion of such chicken or lentil diets led to increased hepatic phospholipid content and lipase activity in these rats [181]. The decreased plasma VLDL mass and APOB-100 levels in the chickpea-fed rats indicated a lower number of VLDL particles as evidenced by diminished VLDL-TAG and ApoB concentrations as seen in other soybean protein studies [94; 338]. Chickpea consumption also decreased serum TC levels in humans [90; 184; 183], and chickpea proteins were shown to normalize TAG levels in hypercholesterol rats [180] further suggesting the beneficial effects of chickpea protein consumption towards the prevention of coronary heart disease and metabolic syndrome [66]. [PERSON] et al., (2019) [179] found that HepG2 cells treated with chickpea proteins resulted in reduced cellular TC while increasing uptake of NBD-cholesterol. They further found that rats fed with chickpea proteins had decreased body and adipose tissue weight; serum TC, \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l l l l} \hline \hline
**GeneSet** & _p_**-Value** & **FDR** & **Inclusive Nodes** \\ \hline Fatty acid metabolic process & \(1.69\times 10^{-11}\) & \(4.21\times 10^{-9}\) & _CPTTA,CPTT1,CPTT1B,FASN,PPARG,PPARA_ \\ \hline Regulation of cholesterol biosynthetic process & \(3.35\times 10^{-10}\) & \(4.16\times 10^{-8}\) & _SREBF1,HMGCR,SREBF2,SCD,FASN_ \\ \hline Regulation of lipid metabolic process & \(6.96\times 10^{-10}\) & \(5.77\times 10^{-8}\) & _CPTTA,HMGCR,CYPA1,KXRA,PPARG,PPARA_ \\ \hline Response to retinoic acid & \(1.59\times 10^{-9}\) & \(9.83\times 10^{-8}\) & _SREBF1,KXRB,KXRA,PPARG,RXRG_ \\ \hline Steroid hormone mediated signaling pathway & \(3.47\times 10^{-9}\) & \(1.70\times 10^{-7}\) & _RXRB,KXRA,PPARG,PPARA,RXRG_ \\ \hline Response to lipid & \(3.80\times 10^{-8}\) & \(1.56\times 10^{-6}\) & _SREBF1,SREBF2,PPARG,PPARA_ \\ \hline Carnitie metabolic process & \(6.02\times 10^{-8}\) & \(2.11\times 10^{-6}\) & _CPTTA,CPTT1C,CPTTB_ \\ \hline Lipid metabolic process & \(1.67\times 10^{-7}\) & \(5.16\times 10^{-6}\) & _SREBF1,SREBF2,PPARG,PPARA,LIDLR_ \\ \hline Negative regulation of macrophage derived & \(4.80\times 10^{-7}\) & \(1.29\times 10^{-5}\) & _CRP,PPARG,PPARA_ \\ \hline Cellular response to low-density lipoprotein & \(1.13\times 10^{-6}\) & \(2.49\times 10^{-5}\) & _SREBF2,PPARG,LIDLR_ \\ \hline Retinoic acid receptor signaling pathway & \(1.13\times 10^{-6}\) & \(2.49\times 10^{-5}\) & _RXRB,RXRA,RXRG_ \\ \hline Transcription initiation from RNA polymerase & \(1.35\times 10^{-6}\) & \(2.71\times 10^{-5}\) & _RXRB,RXRA,PPARG,PPARA,RXRG_ \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 3: Pathway/GO term enrichment analysis of the different genes using Reactome as discussed in this manuscript. TAG, and LDL-C and atherogenic index; and hepatic TC and TAG levels while increasing the levels of serum HDL-C and hepatic and fecal bile acids. They also found that these chicken proteins also inhibited FASN, HMG-CoA reductase, PPAR\(\gamma\), and SREBP-1c while activating liver X receptor (LXR) and the estrogen receptors \(\alpha\) and \(\beta\) (ER-\(\alpha\) and ER-\(\beta\)).