Chia (Salvia hispanica L.) is an annual plant belonging to the Lamiaceae family and native to southern Mexico and northern Guatemala (1). Recently, due to its functional and nutritional att ributes, scientists have revived their interest in chia. In fact, chia contains an important amount ISSN 1330-9862 original scientifi c paper Summary In this work, autochthonous lactic acid bacteria (LAB) were isolated from chia (Salvia hispanica L.) dough and selected on the basis of the kinetics of acidifi

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... cation and proteolytic activity. Strain no. C8, identifi ed as Lactobacillus plantarum C8, was selected and used as start er to obtain chia sourdough. Lactic acid fermentation increased the organic acid mass fractions (lactic, acetic and phenyl lactic acids to 12.3 g, 1.0 g and 23.8 μg per kg of dough respectively), and antioxidant activities, which increased by approx. 33-40 % compared to unferment-ed chia fl our dough. In addition, total phenolic content increased 25 % and its composition was strongly modifi ed aft er 24 h of fermentation by L. plantarum C8. Chlorogenic acid was only found in the fermented dough (2.5 mg/g), while ferulic acid was detected from the beginning of fermentation, being 32 % higher in chia sourdough (5.6 mg/g). The use of fermented chia sourdough improved the overall characteristics of white bread, including physical (e.g. reduced hardness and chewiness of the crumb) and antioxidant properties (25 % on average), compared to the white bread. These results indicate that the use of chia sour-dough could be a promising alternative to improve the technological and antioxidant properties of wheat bread. In addition, this work has shown, for the fi rst time, that lactic acid bacterium is able to ferment chia dough, improving its overall characteristics.