**5. Conclusions**

In conclusion, this study compares, for the first time, the effects of two different chickpea accessions revealing that only the MG\_13 has beneficial responses to significantly attenuate the hepatic steatosis induced by a high-fat diet. The obtained results indicated that the beneficial actions of the single chickpea accession could be related to the presence of specific bioactive compounds or the combination of selective molecules. Hence, the identification of accession-specific phytocompounds should be an important step to explain the difference between the accessions MG\_13 and PI358934. Overall, these findings highlight the importance of the genotypic, phenotypic, and nutraceutical characterization of chickpea cultivars of global food interest.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, M.C., G.T., G.C., and G.V.; methodology, S.P., P.G., M.C., M.D., M.R., A.D.M., M.V., D.D.A. and V.F.; investigation, G.T., M.C., M.D., M.M., A.D.M., C.S., P.G., and A.P.; data curation, G.T., M.R., G.C., S.P., M.C., M.D., A.P., C.S., P.G., and A.D.M.; writing, G.T. and M.C.; project administration, G.T., and C.S.; funding acquisition, G.T., and C.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research has been performed within the project "LegumeGEneticREsources as a tool for the development of innovative and sustainable food TEchnological system" supported under the "Thought for Food" Initiative by the Agropolis Foundation (through the"Investissementsd'avenir" programme with reference number ANR-10-LABX-0001-01), the Fondazione Cariplo, and the Daniel & Nina Carasso Foundation.

**Acknowledgments:** We acknowledge the farm "Iannone Anna" for multiplication of the seeds of the accession MG\_13 used in field experiments. In addition, we acknowledge Gaetano Devito for animal caring.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

### **References**


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